Cool way to take credit cards

[beerfish]

This thing attaches to your phone (Android OS, iPad or iPhone) and lets you swipe credit cards and take payments. The rates are reasonable and it's just downright cool!

My wife and I run a small business and this thing will be awesome for us!

https://squareup.com/

 

[JonnyJ]

genious lol

 

[beerfish]

It's very cool... I just took my first payment with it. With my phone on Wi-Fi it was faster than most store processing machines.

 

[jrobbins]

yeah, i saw that at the small biz expo a couple months ago. my only issue is that 90% of the time the friking battery on my iphone is dead

 

[beerfish]

Yeah... my Incredible usually is too, but I may end up with a second battery anyway, so it should help that issue.

 

[WT Inc]

i heard they have been doing this in Asia and now it just starts in the USA!! Eventually we dont have to carry wallets, cards or cash just one phone! LOL

 

[jrobbins]

was just looking at their rates. the .15 per swipe is pretty good but not unheard of, but paying %3.5 for a keyed entry is pretty expensive. thats about twice what i pay now with my current merchant.

 

[kidninja]

if you go to an apple store and buy something, they have something similar attached to like an iphone ish looking device and you just swipe the credit card there, fast and easy

 

[beerfish]

Yeah... the keyed entry is pretty expensive, but most of my transactions will be swiped. They're a startup and keyed entries are pretty risky, so it makes sense. When you take account the monthly cost for an actual terminal, it's really not too bad.

Now I just wish they had a web gateway so I could process all my transactions in one place.

 

[jaa1456]

This has been around for well over a year now in th US.

 

[beerfish]

This company just started sending out the readers this month. Prior to this it's been a pretty expensive method of taking cards.

 

[jaa1456]

Just like everything else. This method was out just takes time for the prices to come down. Plasmas were 10grand when they first came out, now you can get them for 500 bucks. Just like any type of electronics, time always brings down prices.

 

[beerfish]

Yep... It's exciting when you can actually get your hands on it at at reasonable cost.

 

[TRIGGERMAN]

they used to have a phone I believe it was verizon and it had a swipe thing that was on the side of he phone like built in.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

Beer the person who used the card didnt feel weird about you swiping their card on your phone?-- i dont care how long its been going on in Asia or anywhere else- with identity theft how it is, Id rather go to an atm to pay you cash if I didnt know you. Nothing invented or used over there or anywhere else would make me comfortable about my card info going through some strangers phone lol

 

[beerfish]

The first charge I made was someone I know... we'll see how people react when I take it out into the field. lol

I honestly think that most people won't blink at it just because they don't understand the technology, but I could be wrong.

 

[motortrendz]

.15 is ver expensive per swipe .. i pay $.04 and 1.25% except on amex.. i get charged 2.8%
i do all my trasactions wirelessly bc of the onsite services.. my machine looks just like a cell phone.. noone has ever asked me abt it or was nervous to give me a card..
also ive had this system for abt 5 years...so it s not that new.. but the process of using it as an android app is new..
trigg, the one your talking abt is an old sprint nextel swipe phone

 

[beerfish]

.15 is ver expensive per swipe .. i pay $.04 and 1.25% except on amex.. i get charged 2.8%
i do all my trasactions wirelessly bc of the onsite services.. my machine looks just like a cell phone.. noone has ever asked me abt it or was nervous to give me a card..
also ive had this system for abt 5 years...so it s not that new.. but the process of using it as an android app is new..
trigg, the one your talking abt is an old sprint nextel swipe phone

$0.15 isn't bad considering the lack of contract and lack of any additional equipment. I like the fact that I don't have to carry anything extra with me.

 

[jaa1456]

Motor you own a buisness and its located in your shop. When you are using something mobile and you are not a buisness people get a lot nervous. Today you can steal anything transmitted wireless.

 

[jrobbins]

you are probably much more likely to get your credit card number lifted by the waiter/bartender/cabbie than you are to have a hacker try and crack your little credit card swipers wireless transmission.

not saying it isn't a threat, but if you educate your customers about the relative risks it shouldnt be a problem. we went through that when we started keeping cc #'s on our servers and doing automatic billiing.