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Simple Square Question

Posted by Judy Christian on July 11, 2016 at 9:28am in Business of Art Fairs

Just got back from my first art show using the new square setup with the chip reader. Everything worked fine, and I want to thank everyone for discussing things here.

Every card that we took was with the chip reader.

How would I NOT use the chip reader and process if I needed? When my husband tried to put a chip card through using the mag stripe, square said "no."

Would the chip reader need to be disconnected for that?

Just curious.

Thanks so much!

Judy

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Tags: chip, reader, square
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Replies

  • Greg Little July 21, 2016 at 7:03pm
    I do have several back up batteries and use them often
  • greta anthony July 21, 2016 at 2:22pm
    If you have a really busy show bring a way to charge the PayPal reader. I use a portable power supply. Use it to charge my phone, reader and plug in my 12volt fan
  • Greg Little July 21, 2016 at 11:35am

    It is too bad that Square does not offer a bluetooth/easypay reader that also allows magstripe transactions. I like the idea of an all-in-one device that does all three. I keep hoping that Square would start offering a devive similar to the PayPal one but i do not hear any mention of it being even in a future offering.

    I have been using Square for years and have not had any problems with it but I have uses the payPal device as a backup occasionally and during my last show i used it the entire weekend since i am considering their bluetooth device. The old reader worked great all weekend.

    Starting in September I have 8 or 9 shows scheduled sso I plan to buy the PayPal bluetooth reader to start using for the first show. Now Square moves to the backup position

  • Tina Pietsch July 19, 2016 at 10:39pm
    Used my chip reader for the first time a few weeks ago; however one customer only had a swipe credit card. After using the old style swipe reader, I had to go through all the re-connect back to the chip reader. Do you know if I simply disable the Bluetooth, swipe, then turn Bluetooth back on would I have to re-connect to the chip reader? Thanks for comments!
    • Chris Hoyt > Tina Pietsch July 20, 2016 at 7:39am

      Did you leave the swipe reader in the phone? When I have a swipe card I just process as usual, and when I get a chip card I process it with the chip reader. I don't have to do anything else.

      • Tina Pietsch > Chris Hoyt July 20, 2016 at 10:45pm
        No, but appreciate the tip; will try that next time!
      • Judy Christian > Chris Hoyt July 20, 2016 at 10:09am

        This is where I got confused, because at our first show, my husband tried to swipe a chip card on the little swipe reader, and it denied it, because we were hooked up to use the chip.

        Now after two full shows of using, it's all becoming much clearer, thanks all.

  • Greg Little July 12, 2016 at 11:10am

    I am considering getting the PayPal bluetooth reader. I like that it combines a chip reader, a magnetic swipe reader and the apple pay & samsung pay all in one unit. It is costly at $149 but they refund back $100 of it if you do $3K in sales within 90 days of your first use. During my last show I decided to pull out my paypal plug in reader that I norrmally keep as a backup and had not used in years. It worked on the very first card swipe so I decided to use it all weekend to give it a good test. It worked each and every time on the very first swipe of over 40 transactions that I did that entire weekend... I like the idea of having an all-in-one device.

    • greta anthony > Greg Little July 20, 2016 at 9:01am
      Little tip, when your phone goes to sleep so will your bt paypal reader. Wake up the reader before you wake up the phone. It will reconnect much faster that way.
    • greta anthony > Greg Little July 17, 2016 at 2:42pm
      Pretty much, if the funds went into my bank account without me having to transfer them I'd probably use it more often. Takes about 3 business days. It's more reliable then the square bt reader and I like that the one reader does all 3 forms of payment. And I'm not going to give square an extra 1% just to get instant access to my money when I can do that with paypal.
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