Went to an Art Show today and was shopping around in the booths and decided to purchase a piece of pottery so I handed her my credit card and I was pretty surprised to see this slick little piece of hardware that plugged into her phone that she slit my credit card in to read it. Was a little larger than the size of a quarter and looked like it plugged into the headset hole.

Anyways I asked her where she got it and what it cost and she says that she signed up for it at:

https://squareup.com/ and that it cost a whopping 2.75% per transaction and that's it! No monthly fees, no machine rentals and the little device was free. I went to the site and sure enough it is just as she said.

So... if anyone out there is doing any brick and mortar shops or does arts and craft shows etc. maybe that will help you too

Hmmm! Identity theft comes to mind, Credit card copying. It probably is fair dinkum however I just saw advertised a Text and Phone call recorder up to 50 meter range. The credit card goes into the phone and the info goes into the ether. Bit different from land lines I would think. I know encryption. That can be unencrypted.

It would sure worry me. Tap and go has just started here for all transactions under $30 , and they say you will soon be able to wheel your supermarket trolley through the checkout tap your card and walk out. The mind boggles.

I went to the site. Having said all that, I can see it suitable for a garage sale to get the punters to hand over their cards.
Thanks for heads up.

Thanks, Jo Ann. That's very useful, since one should always be ready to take an order at trade shows, fairs etc.

I used a Square with my iPad to sell DVDs at a ComicCon in New Orleans this past January. It's exceptionally cool!

With the iPad app, you can take a picture of each item you intend to sell, and then enter the product details, price, taxes, etc. After this is set up, the product images display on-screen and you just touch the ones that the customer wants to purchase, like ordering at a fast food restaurant. The app displays all the details of the sale, and the customer can sign on-screen with a finger or stylus. Upon completion of the sale, the customer has the option to receive a receipt via email or text message. SquareUp transfers the collected funds, minus their fee, to your bank account at the end of the day.

In addition to swiping the card to make a sale, you have the option to enter the card information manually, but there's a slightly higher fee for doing it that way. In either case, your device doesn't retain credit card numbers -- all of that stuff is handled by SquareUp's backend server.

You can also accept cash payments, and the app will keep help track sales and computer your sales figures. You can download a CSV of all the transaction details for entering into an accounting program, if desired.

Wow thanks Shunned, I didn't know it could do all that too lol. Sounds better every time I see more information about it

There was an article not too long ago in one of the financial mags we get (Fortune, Inc, Entrepreneur...), don't remember which. It was about a coffee shop that uses only Square (with phones,pads) – no cash registers or POS machines at all.
If they can keep the fees low, I think we'll be seeing more small businesses using it.

Saved as a bookmark. Thank you Jo Ann.

I have Square and use it occasionally, so far with no problems. But!! Be aware that Square apparently has lots of customers with no problems, and lots of customers with big problems. Please use due dilligence; goggle "square reviews" and look at the variety of experiences; here's one example:

http://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credi … re-review/

Some of the issues include: dismal customer service, difficulty even contacting customer service, higher fees and holding $ for "card not present" transactions, lack of any support to merchants (and holding $) for chargeback situations, arbitrary closing of accounts deemed "high risk" by Square, etc. etc.

I repeat; I'm not dissing or endorsing Square, just passing along that some problems have been reported by some users.

FYI. YMMV.