Square Register chip reader has broken several times

[roughdraftny]

Hi all. Just curious if anyone else has had as much trouble with the Square Register chip reader as my shop has. We are a busy coffee shop, but I know we are not the busiest shop that uses this technology. We have had to send our customer display back three times in the last six months because the chip reader somehow breaks and stops registering cards. It appears to definitely be a physical problem -- one of the times, there was clearly a pin or something out of place because cards were getting scratched every time they were inserted.  All three times, the display says "card not read" when people insert. If they do not have a tap card, they have to dip three times before they are allowed to swipe. Obviously this is frustrating for our staff to explain so many times each day, and slows down the line of customers. Each time I've gone through all of the troubleshooting with Square support (check for hardware updates, perform a factory reset, try docking and undocking, etc.) and nothing helps.

Our third replacement is on its way now and I am just really hoping that we do not end up back in the same place again in just a month or two. If anyone else has had frequent problems and has figured out if there is actually a reason or a fix, I would love to hear. I asked Square support but they say this is not a common issue and that they are not aware of other repeat problems like our shop has had.  We have not previously had our display docked, but we may try switching it up to see if that possibly helps. Maybe it's the angle at which people are inserting their cards, or the way dust is getting in? Who knows. I'll try anything at this point! 

[MayaP]

Hey @roughdraftny I hate to hear you are continuing to have to replace your register. I understand this is frustrating and you certainly need a working reader to operate day to day. I know you have contacted support and done all the troubleshooting, but has our team filed a ticket with our engineers?

It is definitely odd this has happened with more than one reader. We have not had reports of this issue but certainly want to take a deeper dive into this.  Do you have any videos you can provide of the issue? If our team has not filed a ticket I would highly recommend contacting them and asking them to, for account security, we cannot file tickets here in the community. If you reach out to our team at 1-855-700-6000 squ.re/contactsqsupport they certainly can. 

[alltimecoffee]

Hello, we are also a coffee shop and have had the same issue, almost exactly as you described. The chip reader is damaging cards, sometimes just a scratch and sometimes completely cracking cards. In order to get around the 3x dip and not breaking customer cards, we have been using one of our gift cards like a dummy card. We have our customer screen mounted to the base, so that is not the solution either. Seems like a design issue with the hardware itself. Very annoying and time consuming when there is a line! I spoke with customer service and we are 2 weeks out of warranty with our machine so we have to buy a new customer screen for $350. 

IMO, there should be a work around the dip function. The system should be set so that it can be disabled. There is also no way to use the register with a different card reader, also bad design. Even if we buy a new screen, we eat the cost, while having to also deal with a slow line, and sometimes even manually enter card numbers. All of which is costing our business time/money. 

Right now I am trying to figure out if there are any other options. For the pace of our shop, the register seems like the most functional, but could be costly in the long run if this issue is not addressed. We have a second square stand which is way less expensive but not the best when we are really busy because of having to spin the thing around all the time. We can't be the only 2 businesses with this problem?

[Erik_S]

In December 2023, we received an email stating "As a valued seller, we’d like to offer you a complimentary, one-time upgrade to our latest Square Register model. It has twice the memory and faster speed to help your business run smoothly." So we traded our machine (which we got in 2020) for this newer model which we received that same month. Today, July 23, 2024, this new model's chip reader has stopped working and cards are getting scratched up. We are currently waiting to hear back from customer service as we are not sure if this 'newer' machine is still under warranty. 

[Fvasello]

We are a sandwich bakery shop and have been having the same exact problem with the customer display chip reader. This is our second register and the chip reader stopped working just a few weeks after. 

I would recommend Square check equipment orders and see how many orders for the customer display only that they have gotten. That will most likely show a significant problem. 

[Vincenzo99]

This happened to us in May 2024. After 3 months, we had the same issue again. I'm currently trying to submit another warranty claim for a second replacement.

[MtnHigh]

I have gone through 3 square terminals because of the card reader scratching and breaking cards.  I finally decided to tear one apart to see what was going on.  There are 4 small metal pins that are pushed down when the card is inserted, somehow when the card is pulled back out, 1 or more of the pins gets caught on the card and bends. Once the pin is bent, there was no fixing it. I could not get the pin to bend back down straight enough to not get caught again. They are very small and thin.  Very frustrating.