Google Wallet: STAY AWAY!!!!

[Michael Seeker]

I was a huge proponent of Google Wallet.  The service is free and you can easily transfer money to people through their easy web interface or the nice App they have.  The only real problem I've had with the service over the past couple years was that it tends to take longer for funds to appear if you're on the receiving end than most other comparable services (Intuit, Chase QuickPay, etc.).

Then this week the unthinkable happened - a tenant took their payment back.  Luckily for me this was a very small portion of their rent that was accidentally made in two separate payments (only $25).  But it illustrated an insurmountable flaw with the service, namely that somebody could take their money back without any say from me, the receiver.  In this case, my account was debited the money at the same time I received an email notification of the reversed transaction.  I had to transfer the money from my bank account to Google Wallet before being able to use it again (I also pay some people with GW).

After several phone calls to customer service I was informed that this was a dispute and just like a CC dispute they credit the funds back to the payee until it's resolved...fair enough.  They tell me I have to dispute the dispute to get my money back, a bit of a hassle but I can deal with that.  I filed the dispute explaining that the person received services and had no claim to the money.  Then today (after about a week of back and forth) I finally figured out how this whole situation came to be:

-Tenant paid rent around 1/5

-Tenant disputed the payment with their bank (not Google Wallet) around 1/15

-Their bank pulled the money back from GW

-GW pulled the money back from me

After several more irritated emails about how ridiculous this is (and them explaining how they can't fix it), the conclusion was that my options are to reach out to the sender and work out a solution or to file a lawsuit.  Since the person is living in my apartment, I'll likely be able to contact them and work out a solution.  But this could easily be much worse than the $25 I'm out right now.  

So the end result is that if you use GW to RECEIVE money, you better be 100% sure that the person sending you the money won't screw you over or that the amount of money is either insignificant or worth filing a lawsuit over because any money you received can just disappear for no reason.

Bottom line: DO NOT USE GOOGLE WALLET TO COLLECT RENT OR ANY OTHER PAYMENTS!

Tags: electronic payment, rent collection