Payment canceled point of sale experienced a problem and could not process your last payment

[geekeliteaz]

I have a Samsung Android 12 phone that I have used for three years. Recently, when using the swipe reader, after getting customers signature the app would crash and the transaction would fail. Square app updates as "cancelled".

I thought this might be a reader issue so I purchased a contactless reader. It no longer required a signature. It would state the sale was completed, but then I would get the same error from Square saying the sale was cancelled.

This issue did not always occur as some sales would go through without a problem. I even wiped / restored the phone. The issue has continued (randomly). I contacted Square support,  The only piece of information they gave me was that the error they saw was "postal code error", but they had no further guidance.

Obviously this is a huge problem for me as, well, I can't complete some sales and have to send them home and hope they pay me via the sent invoice.   I am open to any suggestions to help me resolve this issue. Thank you in advance!

[RobynR]

Hey @geekeliteaz,

That sounds frustrating. Can you please send a screenshot of the error message you receive when taking these payments? Please remember this is a public forum, so do not include any of your or the customer's personal information.

I look forward to your reply.

[geekeliteaz]

I can not.  Alert long since gone.  But basically it shows that the payment was cancelled. 

I talked with a Square rep on the phone earlier today.. First one that had any info about this.   According to her, this issue is new and has cropped up recently due to new security measures put in place on Square's end regarding having zip codes match the cards or the sale gets cancelled.  She added I was the third call about this today.

If this is true.. I think this needs serious and immediate review.   I understand enhanced security, but if this is correct, just because the client may not have updated their zip code to their card the sale cancels?  Honestly, unacceptable.   Also, I have had quite a few of these occur.. so can so many people not have the correct zip associated with their debit or credit card?   Regardless, it is happening far too often that it has become a major inconvenience and an avenue for lost revenue.

I look forward to hearing your response.

[geekeliteaz]

Any follow up on this?

[RobynR]

@geekeliteaz Are the payments showing up as canceled or voided on your transaction history?

[geekeliteaz]

No I do not see any info about them being canceled in that transaction history, but it also does not show an invoice that I cancelled manually.  So not certain that is a great reference for information.

To add to this.  A friend of mine was using Square for payments at an event yesterday.  Both her and the vendor next to her were using the Square app.  I asked if they had had any issues regarding sales being cancelled. They both said no.  So they had dozens of sales just yesterday with zero issues.  I can tell you, I have been average a 1 in 4 failure rate due to this cancellation issue.   So the previously mentioned "zip code error" I am not certain relates to the clients zip code not matching their card.  I think it relates to something else that I need Square to look into and figure out.  I am trying to run a business with your product and it is not longer working correctly.

[RobynR]

@geekeliteaz Thanks for your reply. When you're experiencing payments being canceled, are you using wifi, cellular data, or a personal hotspot?

Also, since you are not seeing that transactions are canceled from your Transaction report, can you please provide a screenshot of the error message you are receiving?

[geekeliteaz]

Connection is over my WiFi which is close by and good connection.
Again, I can not provide you with an an error screen shot as I am taking measures to avoid payment failures under the circumstances.  That said, the friend I previously mentioned did have an issue today with one of here sales with the exact behavior as my errors.  Here is a screen grab from her phone after the failure.  Pretty generic.

[Laurie_]

Thanks for clarifying, @geekeliteaz! I'm just jumping in here for @RobynR while they're out of the office!

Just so we're on the same page here, cancelled invoices won't show on your Transaction history page as there was no payment attempt made. This information is specific to your Invoices Dashboard, so no need to worry about information not displaying correctly.

When a payment is cancelled or interrupted a few things can happen. The first is that the payment is voided entirely. When this happens, you will not see any record of the payment in your transaction history. Your customer may see a pending charge where we have attempted to process the payment and this will ultimately drop off within a few days. 

The second is that the payment moves into a pending state and requires you to manually authorise the payment when logged in via your online Square Dashboard. When this occurs, these payments will show under the Transaction Status report. It's worthwhile checking this report now to see if any payments are awaiting authorisation.

If not, then we need to look at the Payment Failure Troubleshooting steps, particularly the steps to confirm successful payments.

Should you continue to experience these issues, we strongly encourage you to reach out to our Support Team in order to troubleshoot this matter further. 

If you'd like to speak with our Support Team by phone, you can give us a call at 1-855-700-6000 between 6 am - 6 pm Pacific Time Monday - Friday. 

You can also get in touch with our Messaging and Email Support Teams here: squ.re/contactsqsupport

[geekeliteaz]

1) The troubleshooting steps do not apply to this issue. 

2) What is your suggestion  if I have already reached out to phone support FOUR times with the only information given to me is that the cancelled / failed transactions show an issue with "Zip Code" with no further information available. That is the primary reason I am here.  So honestly, you can't point me back to phone support unless you can directly link me with someone who has knowledge of this issue and can resolve it.

I have attached in image of the failures which started in September.  You can see my re-attempts with continued failures.

[geekeliteaz]

Anyone?  Someone?  You requested information and then never followed up.  Customer service?

[RalphTPC]

I have experienced this twice now. Both times it happened after accepting final payment on an invoice. The customer's card was inserted and "APPROVED." One invoice was for a $600 transaction and another was for a $2300 transaction.

Both times, the customer leaves with my merchandise and I'm left with a cancelled transaction indicated under "transaction status."

The error happens when the POS register "Times out" before square has time to apply payment to the invoice. This leaves the invoice unpaid. I had it set to 5 minutes and it seems that was still not long enough. (this is for session time out - NOT THE SCREEN SHUT OFF FUNCTION).

Since Square is not smart enough to figure out what invoice to apply the stalled payment to, it can not complete the payment to the invoice and it AUTOMATICALLY cancels the transaction! 

THIS IS A BUG THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!

Furthermore, I now have the "time out" set to never.

Both times the customer's bank entry showed "paid" or "pending." It took 4-5 days to show up as cancelled on their end. If I did not have a good relationship with these two customers I could have lost almost $3000!!!

[geekeliteaz]

Year old post. 

I can tell you that my issue self resolved after about a month from my last post.  I absolutely guarantee this was a Square issue on their end and nothing with my phone or settings etc.  Disturbing to hear it may have cropped up again.