Square Reader to except credit cards.

I have not seen this posted yet or maybe I missed it. There are so many newbies coming on the site and I don't think that many know about square.com. Square reader is free (I have a friend that was charged by a third Party to buy her reader but go through square.com not a third party) and plugs into your cell phone. It takes 7 days to link to your account and then you are ready to go. I know we get a lot of cash when doing festivals but what about parties or other things. The company charges 2.79% for each transaction. Then the more that is charged a month the less you pay when using square and it can go down to as little as 1%. I love my square reader.

I love mine too! Love telling people they can pay with credit.helps me maintain sales I might have lost otherwise, either by them not having cash, or by the organizer only having a company credit card to fund the event.avoids the whole hassle of being paid by check.

nikkili26 wrote:I love mine too! Love telling people they can pay with credit.helps me maintain sales I might have lost otherwise, either by them not having cash, or by the organizer only having a company credit card to fund the event.avoids the whole hassle of being paid by check.

I agree, plus no waiting for a check in the mail then waiting for it to clear the bank when they want to book a party. I want my deposit and fast as possible to hold that booking date. Then when you get to the party it is nice to have them put it on their card before I even setup. I don't use mine at festivals it takes to much time, unless that person is paying for a herd of kids. That has happened before. I was researching how to take credit cards last year and did not find a thing for a business on the go. I must have missed that square.com somehow. I even asked my photographer friend how does she take payments because she works from home. Months go by and nothing from her on how to do this. I was telling another friend that I need to find a way to do this and fast. He said wait let me call my brother's wife. He did and she said square. I was amazed that my photographer friend did not want to share this piece of information. I was not a threat to her business. I have given her a lot of business too, including my website, business cards, banner and my T-Shirts. The ones that I threw in the garbage can. Except the business cards because I need something until I can get to a local printer and have them help me. I also deleted that website because I totally lost all control over what was written and I could not upload new pics. or take down old ones. So, I found one that I could do with no HTML and transferred my domain name . A total lost of a lot of money.
Well I do love my square reader very much.

yes, I have one in Canada, it's Called Payd. It works great

veelux wrote:yes, I have one in Canada, it's Called Payd. It works great

That should really be discussed here. I see people's website's asking for cash or check. Who wants a check that may or may not be good. Then you are stuck running after the money which you probably will not get and your time and money down the drain, not to mention the time and effort to chase them down. I don't even want to deal with checks. I was delighted when I found out about this little gadget.

I love mine and I just add 5% to the total to cover the fee square charges. It has def increased my sales at PPF set ups and people like the additional convenience.

Good idea! Thanks for sharing.

it has it's pitfalls....I can't recommend it for other businesses but for facepainting, it is perfect. I especially love how it sends a receipt. I really hate waiting for a large payment to clear though but the small $5 deals are great! Also, you can track cash sales too. you don't need the reader to use it, but it charges extra for manually entering.really slows down the convenience when the reader stops working.



and omg, customer service is non existent.

nikkili26 wrote:it has it's pitfalls....I can't recommend it for other businesses but for facepainting, it is perfect. I especially love how it sends a receipt. I really hate waiting for a large payment to clear though :(but the small $5 deals are great! Also, you can track cash sales too. you don't need the reader to use it, but it charges extra for manually entering.really slows down the convenience when the reader stops working.



and omg, customer service is non existent.

Why did your reader stop working? Mine does if I do not have it steady and held right when swiping the card, but I have never had it completely stop. If yours does that you should contact them and get a new reader. This is the most convenient way to deal with booking a party for me.  I think it is a fabulous deal and a real gem. I go to Best Buy a lot and when it is really busy there are guys running around to check you out with their square reader in the cell phone. Of course they have it in a much better case so it won't wiggle. I have learned how to use my flap that is over the opening of my otter box to help secure it. Yes, a little extra for entering manually but, would you rather wait for a check to come in the mail then wait for it to clear the bank? Unless you want to run over to their bank and maybe their bank does not have a branch close to you. I got a check once for a party deposit. It took the woman 4 days for it to arrive here, four working days. She lives about 8 miles away. Our mail is slow but not that slow. Then another two days for it to clear my bank or, I would have had to run 16 miles round trip to get to her branch. I think the square reader takes the stress off the situation. Now, if someone would have booked a party in that time slot in those 6 days I was waiting she would have hit the ceiling. I told her I would not hold the date until the check had arrived and cleared the bank. She did take the chance and she got her party but if it had turned the other way she would have caused me grief. I had a feeling about that woman over the phone and my vibes were right. She was a pain to deal with all the way around. She knew I wanted payment upon arrival. I get there at the time I said I would and it takes her 11 minutes to come in and pay me while I stand there and wait. I think she was waiting to see if I would go ahead and setup, which I did not. Then when the party was through I would have had one heck of a time dealing with a drunk and a woman that I do believe did not want to part with the money. The problems did not stop there either.  In the end I am sorry I ever took that booking.

I go through my own merchant services and do pay extra yearly for it but am happy with the customer service and added security.  There are valid arguments either way, so do your homework.

I'm a square user and I love it! I will admit that I don't use it often, but if nothing else, the customer loves the 'legitimacy' of being able to accept cash, cheque, Paypal or CC for deposits and payment.

I use Paypal Here. It has a little lower fee and excellent customer service. Plus, there is a tip option.
I really like being able to tell my customers I can take plastic. Many sales, which would have walked away, have been made.

yes, i prefer paypal's reader too...but i did like that square was free.


my reader isn't broken, but sometimes it can't read a card, which means it has to be manually entered and costs more.

PayPal's reader is also free. I use both. Love them both. PayPal offers a debit card that is linked to your PayPal account. So instead of opening up an separate bank account for my business I can use PayPal. I can choose to keep all my charges in the PayPal account or transfer them to my bank account.

mmhmm, the only problem with paypal is the client can always cancel....then you are left holding the bag.

that has happened to me before, and it really sucks, especially if you needed that money to pay for an online order.luckily I've always been able to get paid, but if the payment wasn't made til the day of the event, I wouldn't know it was canceled til a week later.

nikkili26 wrote:mmhmm, the only problem with paypal is the client can always cancel....then you are left holding the bag.

that has happened to me before, and it really sucks, especially if you needed that money to pay for an online order.luckily I've always been able to get paid, but if the payment wasn't made til the day of the event, I wouldn't know it was canceled til a week later.

Good point nikkili26. I don't like PayPal and I only use it when I buy from overseas. But to each his or her own. When I sell on Craigslist and I only advertise in my local area, I still get text or calls from a lot of people wanting to use PayPal. I ignore them because of this same issue. Then I may have the loss of my product and my shipping cost. The first few of these people that I did answer never want to let me use my square and only want to use pay pal. So, I just stopped answering them. But Craigslist does bring out some of the worst cons on the planet.

Didn't know that!

I had been using Square since it came out. I had no problems with it until this month. I loved using it until a customer's billing department disputed a legitimate charge from several months ago. There is no phone number to reach customer service at Square. Square just takes the money right out of your bank acct until it is resolved. Some people have had major issues with not being able to get their money back when chargebacks were done in error. I immediately switched to paypal. I already take deposits via paypal anyway...
I'm still waiting to get my money back from Square, but so far they've been responsive over email. I'd still prefer a live person for customer service instead of taking a chance someone will decide to respond to an email.

VictoriaS wrote:I had been using Square since it came out. I had no problems with it until this month. I loved using it until a customer's billing department disputed a legitimate charge from several months ago. There is no phone number to reach customer service at Square. Square just takes the money right out of your bank acct until it is resolved. Some people have had major issues with not being able to get their money back when chargebacks were  done in error. I immediately switched to paypal. I already take deposits via paypal anyway...
I'm still waiting to get my money back from Square, but so far they've been responsive over email. I'd still prefer a live person for customer service instead of taking a chance someone will decide to respond to an email.

I have made a dispute on my credit card against a few merchants when I buy online too. I have done this and they send me a form to fill out, I explain what was wrong with their product or service send the form back and my money is returned to me. Maybe that is what this person did to you. Now all you have to do is the same thing dispute the charge on your end. A few times I was build on my credit card for something accidentally signed up for did not want( or they said I signed up for)or just a bad product that I sent back. You can dispute a charge at any time, of course there must be a legitimate beef. My money was always returned to me and that was not done on square charge but an online purchase. So this can and will happen at some point in our carrier. But you have the right to dispute that and tell your side of what he/she got as in your services. I too made and accidental charge on Square and then had to cancel it out. I had no problem with that one either. That is when I was first using the reader.
What they paid for and get your Sales and Advertising Transparency:
For me, Square does very, very well in this category. Everything they say in their advertising checks out, and they don't use any wacky sales gimmicks. Their "free" reader is actually free, and they really don't charge any additional fees. They could definitely state more information about account holds, why they happen and how to avoid them, though. This is the biggest complaint from merchants using Square, and surely the company is aware of this. Not disclosing this in plain sight as a possibility definitely equals a lack of transparency. They do make it pretty clear that no phone-based support exists, although many merchant still complain about this.

Aside from that, however, I couldn't ask for more from Square. All fees, rates, and important information appear in their sales copy, and just about everything else you could ever want to know about processing with Square appears in detail within their extensive Help Center.money back.