Off-line transaction declined and Square dumped all the data I collected

[BothwellFarms]

Beware of off line transactions!  Our mobile hotspot went down and we were forced to process transactions offline to upload later.  I was aware of the risk of a declined payment, and our policy is to take a email for all Square customers in case of an issue.  We collected the swiped card data, customer name, and signature and also entered the customers email into the app.  

I was blown away that Square dumped all the data I collected because the card was declined.  I thought that the data I entered would remain with the transaction, especially if there was a problem like this.  Now I'm out $141 dollars and I don't even know who the customer was because Square deleted my data.  Square does so much right, we need to fix this glitch.

[1977mdusa]

wow i was unaware of that also

[Russell]

Hi @BothwellFarms - I'm so sorry to hear about this situation. This is definitely not the type of experience that we want you to have when using Square.

I think I know what happened, it sounds like too much time may have passed between using Offline Mode and reconnecting to the internet or some payments came back declined after reconnecting. Either way, I agree this would be upsetting. 

Offline Mode can enable you to keep doing business during a temporary loss of internet connectivity. This can be very helpful, but I want to take a moment to share a few details to keep in mind when using Offline Mode for times you may use it in the future as well as for other sellers like @1977mdusa.

• Credit card transactions made during Offline Mode will process automatically when you connect to the internet, however, this needs to be done within 72 hours. After this time, the data will be lost. 
• During Offline Mode, there is no way to verify if a card is valid. That means the transaction will complete regardless if the card is expired or declined. If a transaction fails, you won't find out until you reconnect to the internet.

I am sorry again that you had this experience and hope this helps to clear things up. 

[BothwellFarms]

No, we were only off-line for about 3 hours.  The card came back as declined, and from what I was told by Square customer service was that it is policy to dump all collected data when the transaction is declined.

[BothwellFarms]

I am less upset about the charge being declined (I knew the risk) than I am about Square dumping the data that I collected.  Save the customers name, signature, and the email address that we collected and entered!  That way I have a link to identifying my customer.  If I take a check that is declined, I have the customers name, address, and phone number so I can collect.

[FarmMom]

I just got burned for the first time on a payment made during a short offline period at the farmer's market today.  Actually, I'm not even sure we were really offline, but that's what it said.  All of us vendors had their Square go out so we had to enable off-line mode.  I thought it was weird, though, since I still had 4 bars showing on my connection on my phone.  I'm wondering if something was going wrong with Square itself.

Anyway, I get home and am checking charges just now, and it says one of the payments taken during the few minutes we were offline failed.  It doesn't say the transactions was declined, it says "Payment Failed".  It has the ending 4 numbers of the card, but that's all.  I guess I'm going to have to see if the guy that bought the Baby Back Ribs and Bacon from me is honest and comes back next week so we can try it again or settle up.  It's too bad there isn't a way to run the transaction again,   I don't know if a "Failed Payment" necessarily means the card was declined or if it just means something was wrong and it could be retried.  Live and learn I guess.

[Helen]

Thanks for posting about this @FarmMom. I'm sorry to hear about the connection trouble that you experienced at your Farmers Market this weekend.

'Payment failed' typically means the card was declined by your customer's bank — you did nothing wrong! Unfortunately, banks don't share the reason a card is declined with Square. This means even if this happened in real time, your customer would need to contact their bank to find out why the transaction wasn't approved. To complete this charge you will need to contact your customer, or wait for them to reach out to you. 

If you're using Offline Mode in future, I recommend verifying the name of the card holder, and the expiry date (to check the card is valid). You could also consider taking a note of your customer's phone number or email address, just in case you need to reach out to them to run the payment again.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this! If you have questions about this specific transaction, or if you'd like us to confirm if you were in Offline Mode on Sunday please, contact our Support team directly. We're happy to help! 

[AZCorpGames]

These scenarios are why I will not process off line.  For me, the risks are too great for a charge to not go through.  Even though you have the customer's email and phone.  There is nothing you can really do to collect if the decline to be honest and make good on the transaction.  Especailly a small transaction amount such as a rib dinner.  

Good post. 

[worldcon]

Squares system went down and I get back to my terminal 24 hours and 24 minutes after initial offline transaction to find it failed. No way to save and retry. 

Will never use offline mode again. 

[Wildartsweb]

As of today i have lost approximately $300 but the products that walked out the door really hurt. I sell one of a kind originals so who will those be replaced?  Square lost me a $20 transaction last month - not so horrible until today. They lost me $154 by lettting the transaction process through as though it were OK. then when i got home tonight it messages me that the card was declined.

I am so disappoointed. In the past i could rely on Square to tell me instantly if a card was declined. Where i operate there are always a few 'customers' who like to try it on because they figure they are far enough away from civilisation to get away with it. Before they couldnt - now they can.

While i was checking on this lost amount of my income i saw another transaction had been delined a few days ago - that one i did not even receive a email notification for which is why i only found it by accident today!

i can see no solution for this other than to refuse credit cards and stop using Square.

[Helen]

@Wildartsweb I'm so sorry to hear that you've lost sales. Were you using Offline Mode when these transactions were processed? In Offline Mode transactions aren't processed until regain your internet connection so you won't know if a card is declined until you reconnnect. If you don't want to use Offline Mode you can disable the feature from the app. Tap Settings > Offline Mode > use the toggle to turn the feature off.

If you're not using Offline Mode and a card is declined you should see the error message that the payment failed in the app right away, not later in the day. I recommend making sure you're running the latest version of the app and that the software on your device is up to date. You should also make sure you have a strong internet connection at the location you're taking payments and turn off Offline Mode as I mentioned above if you don't want to use it.

You could contact our CS team too as they can check your transaction history and help understand what happened with the payments that were declined unexpectedly. 

I'm really sorry again for this experience. If you have any other general questions please let me know.

[WeigtInc]

We have used offline mode numerous times in the past and have only lost  a few times. The last few days we lost several sales, of what seems to be approximately $185.

So now I want to verify, while using offline mode- not only are we supposed to input all the customers info into the app, but also write it down, just in case it gets declined? 

Or is the information that we collected in the app (signature,email or text/phone) saved for 72 hours, so that we might be able to contact the customer to collect?

[ashc · Accepted solution]

Hey @WeigtInc,

We don't save or store any personal information like that in the system. You can store that in your Customer Directory but since that's personal information you'll need to collect it manually. 

With Offline Mode you'll want to take down card information or contact information in case the card declines since you won't know until you get back into internet connection to upload the sales. 

[WeigtInc]

So in offline mode, the system does not save anything? I thought somewhere in other comments, that it would be saved for 72 hours? I was able to retrieve, info such as the last 4 digits, not sure why I cannot see the rest that was collected.

Then in regular online mode, when we collect a signature and an email or phone(text) for the receipt, none of that is saved? 

[ashc]

@WeigtInc The transactions themselves do save until you're able to upload for 72 hours but there's never personal information such as phone number/name/etc stored in our system.

So those things would be what you'd want to take down in case of a decline to contact the customer again. 

[Mays2014]

EDIT: [Personal information redacted]

Ashley, today I received 2 separate emails stating cards not processed while offline w/last 4 card numbers. This has never happened before, don't even know how to tell if offline.

What can I do now?

[kalessaradan]

Once a card is declined in Offline Mode, unless you personally collected contact information, there is no way to rerun the card again or contact the buyer.

On the mobile app, when your internet connection drops and you enter Offline Mode, the entire top of the app is bright red with the word "Offline" across the top. Normally this section is black and will say "Reader Connected" if you have a Contactless Reader connected to the device.

If you want to prevent Square from running cards in Offline Mode, go to More->Settings->CheckOut and switch "Offline mode" from On to Off. With this option set to off, you never have to worry about Square running cards offline. If your connection goes away, Square will not allow you to run a card.

[Laurie_]

Thanks for helping us out by providing this great answer @kalessaradan!

@Mays2014 we've gone ahead and removed the personal information you entered in your post. It's important to recognise that although we're here to support you, the Seller Community is still a public platform and personal information should never be exchanged here.

In the event you need a member of our team to review account-specific information with you, please contact our Support Team as your first port of call. 

In addition to the steps provided above, you can visit our online guide to Process Card Payments with Offline Mode to enable or disable this feature. 

[Rockcandynp]

We had the exact same situation-except we were only down for 1/2 hour. The customer's info was not available to me to contact her to get another card, so basically they got the merchandise for free. I also understood the risk, but would have hoped to at least retain the customers name. I am no longer taking cards during an internet outage-which of course means I may lose the sale, but at least I will still have my merchandise to sell. 

[kalessaradan]

Hi there,

We always collect the Customer's phone number or Email in the Note field for one of the products purchased (or in the Note Field for a Custom Amount). That information is still visible under the Declined Transaction from the Transaction Menu option. See picture below.

Declined Transaction, Phone Saved 

[Arie]

Thank you for sharing this tip, @kalessaradan!