Missing Plastiq Payment
I wanted to share a recent experience I had with a missing Plastiq payment, since it is the first time I have had it happen. There doesn't seem to be a ton of information out there if you run into this situation either. Luckily, it didn't seem to be a big deal in my experience, and it was quickly resolved. All without any human interaction needed, which is my favorite kind of resolution!
What Is Plastiq?
You may be wondering what Plastiq is exactly. It is a payment processing company that will send out a payment, via ACH or check, on your behalf. This allows you to make payments to places that don't normally take a credit card as payment. It does come with a 2.9% fee, and a $1.49 check delivery fee, so it won't make sense all of the time. It does work well when you are working on a welcome offer, or some kind of spending bonus. Basically any time you are getting a better than 3% return on the spend is a good time to pull this out.
It is just like Melio, but for personal spend. There is no business to business spend requirement like there is for Melio with Plastiq. If you have a business then be sure to check out the offer going on with Melio for new members. The offer allows you to get several thousand dollars in free spend, and put a little money in your pocket to boot.
I use Melio for my business expenses, where they won't accept credit cards, and then use Plastiq for similar instances for personal expenses. You can even make car payments and pay your mortgage with Plastiq with select credit cards. It is important to remember that the fee makes this a losing deal most of the time though. Planning out a proper Plastiq strategy is important here.
My Experience With A Missing Plastiq Payment
I have been using Plastiq for several years and never really had an issue. It takes a week or two for payments to get where they are going, and for the people to deposit them, but it always worked like a charm. A few months back I finally got around to setting up a payment target for the water department for the cottage. Why do all government offices not have credit card payment ability yet by the way? It blows my mind! In the past I would send a payment for several months at a time because I didn't want to have to mess with a $40-$50 payment every single month.
I decided to do the same thing, but with Plastiq this time. After setting up all of the required info I fired off a $300 payment with Plastiq. I put the charge on my credit card with a welcome offer attached. A few weeks passed and I never received the check deposited confirmation email from Plastiq. It got a bit lost in the shuffle of life and travel, but after I received a new water bill showing no payments I decided to call the office. I informed them that a check was sent out several weeks ago from a payment processor and asked if they were sitting on any payments. She informed me that they never sit on payments (not my experience with water departments) and that she didn't have anything on her desk. Great!
Should You Cancel A Plastiq Payment?
After hanging up with the water department I went to my Plastiq account to see what my options were. I will admit that they don't seem to have a great customer service set up. It looks like you can email them and then get a response in a day or two. Instead of doing that I decided to do some sleuthing on the internet on what to do with this “lost” check. I have a feeling the water department didn't know exactly what to do with it and it got shoved somewhere, but it could have just been lost in the mail. The good news was that the check did not show as cashed, which would have added a layer of complication to the process.
Questions About The Process
There wasn't much information out there on a missing Plastiq payment besides some chat boards. I did find this guide on Plastiq's site though. Before finding the guide I had a lot of questions about what to do when a Plastiq payment goes missing. I wasn't sure if they would just re-issue a new check etc. Would I need to still pay the 2.9% fee with the cancelled check? Would this take a long time to get my money back?
My Experience Was Surprisingly Efficient
It ended up only taking a few clicks to cancel the check, and they responded later that day saying my payment would be refunded. They even included the processing fee! I think it helped that it had been 3 weeks since the payment should have been made. That, plus the fact that the check was never deposited worked in my favor. It was pretty obvious at this point that the payment was lost and needed to be cancelled. Right after I cancelled the check I sent out a new payment to replace that one. I did it for a different amount, only $250 this time. I didn't want there to be any confusion on the back to back payments when I was tracking everything on my end.
How To Handle A Missing Check
After going through it I figured I would share the steps on how to take care of a lost Plastiq payment. You will need to cancel the payment and then create a new payment to replace it. Plastiq does not re-issue checks / payments. They will need to verify that the check has never been deposited, and that they can cancel the payment. This could take a day or so, but was the same day in my experience. You will want to let the location where the check is going to disregard the canceled check if it comes through later.
The payment was refunded to my credit card the same day and the credit was actually showing as pending the next day. A few days after that it fully settled on my credit card account. The credit included the payment amount ($300) plus the processing and delivery fee ($10.19). I was happily surprised that they eat all of the cost of creating and mailing out the check when things go wrong. Here are the steps for cancelling a Plastiq check payment. (I apologize that I didn't screen shot when I was doing it in real time but I will recreate it the best I can here)
Step 1: Go To Your Missing Plastiq Payment & Hit The 3 Dots
This is probably best done on the computer. Here is what your account should look like when logged in. You will first want to go to your Payments section, and then select the Complete option to pull up checks that have been sent out. Find the missing Plastiq payment and then pull up the info for that check. Once there you will want to click on the 3 Black Dots at the top right of the page.
Step 2: Select Reason To Cancel The Check
When you click on the 3 Black Dots an option will appear to Cancel The Payment. Once you select that you will come to this screen where you need to select the reason for the cancellation from the drop down menu on the list. The options are:
- Sent to the wrong address
- Incorrect account or payment information
- Sent to wrong vendor
- Vendor has received the check but refused to deposit it
- Vendor has not received the check
I selected the vendor has not received the check option. That may be why I received the fees and delivery cost refunded. I would guess that if it is an error on your part that you may have to eat those.
Step 3: Process The Cancellation … Or Not
Once you select the reason for your payment cancellation you will be met with the opportunity to cancel the check … or not. It will all depend on how long it has been. As you can see above, when I tried this on a payment that was still within the payment window I was not given the chance to cancel. On the one that was several weeks past the payment date I was able to. You will have to agree to some terms before accepting the cancellation, but once it is eligible that will show on this screen.
Step 4: Track The Refund To Your Card
Once you have reached the timeframe where you can cancel your missing Plastiq payment you will want to make sure everything is refunded properly to your card. After it is complete on Plastiq's end you will see the information updated on the payment in question. As you can see above, it shows this payment as cancelled and then has the refunded date highlighted in the red box above. It is also showing properly on my credit card account. Now I just wait to see if the water department messes up the new payment I sent out too.
Missing Plastiq Payment: ToP Thoughts
If I am being honest, my missing Plastiq payment experience was way smoother than I expected it to be. I had planned on needing to go back and forth with their customer service several times. I also figured the credit would take days or weeks to show up. It was all pretty seamless and efficient. Maybe I was just lucky? I also loved that Plastiq ate all of the fees involved with the missing payment. That is probably going above and beyond, but I appreciated it.
Let me know if you have ever had something similar happen over in the ToP Facebook Group.
