For the second time my credit card terminal has died at a show. This one could have been especially bad. The first time the terminal died before the show, leaving me scrambling with finding the knuckle buster and stressing about how I was going to input the card information I was receiving. This time, though, the terminal died in the middle of the show, after I had taken about $800 in credit cards. Since I use a store and forward the terminal not only died but took the information with it. I had never thought about that possibility.
On Sunday morning I had an idea. A while back Vistaprint had sent me a Square. I had tossed it on top of the file cabinet with the thought that I would look into it one day. My husband was coming in Sunday morning to hang out and help with load out. I managed to catch him before he left and tell him to grab the square.
He arrived with the square and I downloaded the app. I did a test transaction with my own card and it worked. Ten minutes later I got a charge purchase. It worked beautifully and I got an approval right away. No more worries about stored transactions. Last night I managed to contact the two customers whose transactions I had lost and redid the charge using the square. It may be a while before I see the money because they were “card not present” transactions but at least it is not gone for good.
Okay I’m a convert and am strongly considering an I-Pad. The signatures with your finger come out really weird and I have other uses for an I-Pad. Why did I wait so long?
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