accepting credit cards at craft shows

[brudil18]

This is a great article. I do appreciate it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future.

I got burned by a merchant service before, so needles to say I am a little jilted when it comes to them.

I'll have to keep my eye out for more on this. Wish there were more "squares" in the sense of no contracts, or hidden fees or like involved. It is hard as a small business to justify the expense of a full blown merchant service. That's what made Square so appealing.

[GermantownCandles]

I think the square processing is just about as safe as any other type of CC processing (other than knuckle busters) you would find at a craft show. Square Up uses Secure Socket Layer (which is the https of a website, this is the secure area where sensitive info is gathered) and it also must live up to the guidelines of the PCI DSS security standards (Google PCI DSS if your interested). As for someone creating a program to steal you CC #, I would hope that not many merchants we encounter are that type, entirely possible though. I agree that VeriFone is losing ground in the processing market to these types of companies, and is releasing articles like this to scare people away from these fee free companies. I think your information can be just as easily stolen from a place like VeriFone as it can be from Square Up. If a criminal is determined to steal, it doesn't matter who you are using. IMHO

[JAVAEBOY]

I have to agree with GermanTownCandles here. As a IT developer, the only reason to worry about encryption with the Square reader, would be if the person accepting the credit card were being deceptive. It is true that one can write an application to gather the information from a credit card using one of these devices. The same can be said if someone has put another card reader over the top of the ones we use everyday at the ATM machine. NONE of the units in question actually encrypt your information when initially going into the device, it does get encrypted to actually make the transaction and get saved. Anyone that wants, is free to inspect any part of my Android device and it's memory to find these unencrypted CC numbers. Not knocking anyone's non-use of todays electronics (my parents still don't have a computer) but, for anyone to think that the paper left after a knuckle-buster is used, is anywhere near as secure as the new electronic devices, needs to read up on todays security. Every warning I have seen so far is from a competitor to Square. When the smartphone with Square sends the information to Square, the data IS encrypted.

Edited March 28, 2011 by JAVAEBOY

[TraciS]

I'm a little leery of the cell phone CC processing and would not do it without getting a printed receipt as a customer (unless I knew the vendor). This is only because they are relatively new and I have had my CC compromised 4 times in the same year a couple years ago. Fear of the unknown I guess.

I use a wireless CC machine at shows - the kind that has been around for years. I never see the card # once I hand the card back and if my machine malfunctions the processing co handles forcing the CC through and I just close the machine out like normal. Mine runs through NPC and I pay $198 compliance fee yearly (starting this year) after going through their compliance sudit survey. I don't know how I could get much safer for my customer. I probably pay more overall but if anything happens NPC provides $10K work of help. I'm kinda okay with that.

[Noodle]

I'm a little leery of the cell phone CC processing and would not do it without getting a printed receipt as a customer (unless I knew the vendor). This is only because they are relatively new and I have had my CC compromised 4 times in the same year a couple years ago. Fear of the unknown I guess.

I agree. This is why I pay cash. My cynical personality is showing I guess in this day and age...

[FarmerJill]

...This is why I pay cash. ...

Cash! I love shoppers like you!!