Offline mode won't accept credit card transactions

[DAG]

I am using Square register with Square for retail. Offline payments and non-disruption of service was a huge factor in selecting Square. I was told it could accept offline payments by swiping the card. It does not work. It has never worked. I have confirmed offline mode is on. 

When I swipe the card it says card must be inserted. But inserting it doesn't work and I was told the only way to do offline was to swipe the card. 

I've called support but they have no answer.

[frances_a]

Hello @DAG

Square Register only supports offline payments when a card is swiped. 

You can learn more about accepting offline payments here. 

Is swiping cards working when your Register is successfully connected to the internet? 

I'm thinking it might be an issue with swiping in general and not only swipes in Offline Mode. 

If swiping isn't working even when connected to the internet, you might want to check out the troubleshooting steps in this article.

Let me know if that helps, thank you!

[DAG]

Hi

Swiping cards works fine when I'm connected to the internet for cards that need to swipe so it's not an issue with that.

I read that info about offline payments and I have it set to offline mode so it's supposed to kick in if my internet goes down. This has happened 3 times and swiping the card has never worked offline. This most recent time, the customer swiped and it said the card had to be inserted. The customer was patient and spent quite a bit of time with us but we never got it to work and they walked out without purchasing anything - exactly the opposite of what I want to happen. 

The Square customer service person I spoke to told me that the banks were no longer allowing swiping for cards that had chips. I'm not confident that's the answer. 

I tried connecting my register to the hotspot on my phone but even though the network shows up, the register won't allow me to select it to connect. 

I'm going to have to end up buying a device to ensure I can connect when the internet goes down even though offline payments is supposed to be a feature of Square. 

[MayaP]

Hi @DAG,

I am so sorry you were given misinformation from the CS advocate. But in offline mode you can only swipe. 

If you are having issues with your register not taking swipe payments in offline mode, this is something we need to investigate further, and might need to file a ticket. 

If you haven't already tried these troubleshooting steps for the register in the above mentioned post please do. 

I know you have already spoken with CS Support.  But we have dedicated Hardware Team for the register. When you call in please make sure you ask to speak with them, not general support. You can reach support at 1-855-700-6000 squ.re/contactsqsupport .

I apologize about the all the confusion, and having to reach out to support multiple times! 

[DAG]

Thanks for the tip to ask to speak to the dedicated hardware team.

[KonaHampden]

Hi Mayap,  When in offline mode, how do you know if the card has been successfully swiped?  (Normally it takes people 2-3 tries before the swipe is captured on my square terminal.)  Is there a message that pops up that says it was successful?  Not the payment itself, of course, but the swipe to capture their credit card info?

[MayaP]

Hey there @KonaHampden when offline mode is enabled you will not know at that moment the payment went through successfully. When you connect your system back to wifi/hotspot is when the transactions will actually get processed. 

If a payment did not go through it won't load, you can look at the transaction status report on the dashboard or contact us and we can look into it.  If the payment did not go through we don't have a way to reprocess the transaction either. It is more work but but we have had sellers manually collect card and buyer information if they are using offline mode in case this does happen they can recharge the customer. I know it's more work and honestly not the best look in front of your customers, but these are the caveats of using offline mode.