Potential issue with split payments when payment verification process required

[BofBArtStudio]

Square Team and Community,

We have had a scenario happen at least a few times in recent months and it seems that it might be something to look into.

Basically when there is a transaction on our Square Retail POS that is getting tendered by split payments, we have found that, if one or more of the payments for the split is tapped/dipped/etc, and the card holder gets a text from their bank asking to verify the transaction (fraud alert), then, even after they confirm, and try again, we cannot continue, without cancelling out of all of the payments of the split, and starting over.

In order to try to paint the picture of what I mean, here is a mock example of the Transaction steps for clarity:

1. Total amount of Cart on Square Retail POS is $500

2. On the payment screen, click the Split Amount button in upper right

3. Spit into two or more payments

4. Take payment one of $250.  Customer A taps and all is good

5. Take payment two of $250. Customer B taps and it shows "Declined - Square Has Encountered an error, please try again" (the message is something like that.  I wish I had a picture of it)

6. Customer B sees that they received a text from their bank to verify the transaction is intended (fraud alert) and they confirm via text and receive a response from their bank to proceed with the transaction

7. Customer B then taps again for that payment, and the same message comes up "Declined - Square has encountered an error, please try again"

8. So, Customer B has a friend standing there that says "It's ok, I will pay it with my card".  That person taps and gets the same error message. "Declined - Square has encountered an error, please try again"

9. Customer A, who paid the first split payment without a problem,  says "let me just take care of it" and then tries to tap for the second payment and gets the same error message.

10.  However, if we then cancel ALL of the split payments and start over, and then Customer A taps to pay $250 and Customer B taps (with the same card as before) to pay the $250, all goes through no problem.

I am not totally sure, but I think that, when there is a payment verification alert sent from the cardholder's bank, and we are in the middle of a Split Amount transaction, it won't let it proceed, even after verification, without cancelling all payments up to that point and then starting over.

At least that is how it has worked out the last few times this has happened.

With these bank verification message alerts being more and more common, this may be something that we see happen more and more. 

It is difficult to test it and reproduce due to the fact that we cannot force or predict the bank sending a text message to verify a payment.  However, It feels like a possible theory that it is being caused by being in the middle of split payments on a transaction,  now that it has happened for us a few times And we've been able to consistently solve it by canceling all payments and starting over.

Almost like it gets stuck at that point.

Any insight on this?  Has anyone experienced this?  

Thanks

[VanKalkerFarms]

I have had pretty much the same scenario a few times and the only solution was to cancel out all the payments and start over.  you can't even use cash in that scenario once "square has encountered an error" as it will give the same error for cash.

[BofBArtStudio]

Oh that's interesting. I hadn't even tried cash in one of these situations.

The challenge with all of this comes when it's multiple splits and the first person pays and then leaves before we get to all the payments. 

A group of five people who want to split it five ways and the first person says "okay I'll go meet you at the restaurant" or something like that.

I did try to search for this, in the community, to see if there are other posts about it, but didn't find anything.