Square Reader Canadian, phone from America, can't connect to each other

[madmoravian]

I'm in Canada for a convention and trying to use the convention's square reader for transactions.  When I attempt to connect to the square reader from my phone, it displays the error complaining about the reader not being the correct country.

The reader has never been out of Canada, so it is in the correct country.  Is the fact that my phone is a U.S. phone the issue?

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @madmoravian.I lifted this from this Square Help document. It seems that when you connect the “foreign” hardware to your phone, it knows. 

Can I Process Payments While Travelling Abroad?

Cross-border card payments are unsupported. This means that card transactions attempted outside of the country where you activated your Square account can’t be processed with Square. However, you can accept cash transactions while traveling internationally.

[madmoravian]

So do I have to login to the square account for the Canadian convention before attempting to attach the square reader?

[TheRealChipA]

So it seems. But then they won’t be your sales. They will be their sales.  They’ll have to send you your money and give you the equivalent of a 1099 or something. It’s an accounting hassle on all sides. Better off being on a cash only basis while there. I’d have thought they’d have worked stuff like this out if they knew they had US-based vendors. You’re trying to do something that has strict laws and regulations set up around it, for good reason. 

[madmoravian]

They are supposed to be their sales, not mine.  I'm acting as their sales clerk for this part of the convention.

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Ah. My apologies. That was not clear to me. Yes, my assumption is that as long as you are signed onto their Square account with a device code or such, you should be able to connect to their reader and process transactions. 

Of course, it’s possible that Square checks IMEIs, etc, I don’t know how they enforce the whole country thing. Obviously the most foolproof way to get going is to use one of their devices, if you can.