Performance Issue: Square Services Disruption 7 Sept, 2023

[urs]

[The title of this post was updated by a moderator from "IS SQUARE DOWN, EVERYWHERE?"]

The Square Support Line says..."you have reached us during an unexpected closure..."  Anyone have an idea what is going on?

[TheRealChipA]

And, yes, the issue is affecting support as well.

[TessC]

I feel like a fool for falling for Square's land grab for so many parts of our business. As a bookstore with a cafe/bar, we are in a weird hybrid space, and use Square for POS and inventory management for both retail and food & beverage; payroll; loyalty/CRM & marketing. I was considering Square online, but absolutely won't do that now.

I will continue to use Square for POS and inventory management with some redundancies, but everything else should be on the table. So, other than Stripe for CC processing, who/what is everyone using for the following: 

- Customer Relationship Management/Marketing: Specifically email & text marketing, and how are you integrating the names and information collected via Square's loyalty program at POS?

- Loyalty/Rewards: Anything compatible with Square?

- E-Commerce: Best tools, and their ability to integrate with Square for inventory management? 

And one snarky comment: For a company led by an individual who was a pioneer in communications platforms, the crisis comms during this outage has been abysmal. I'd say sophomoric, but that would imply they made an attempt. 

[Donnie-M]

I made another post in the thread and noted all of the major companies that have internet outages and have some of the best engineers money can buy.  It does happen, we don't want it to, but to say they weren't doing their best and communicating better than alot of companies is an opinion and not based on anything other.  I agree it can always be done better, but shoe on the other foot, I have seen much worse responses to service outages than this..heck try your local power company or comcast if you want to see poor response and information.

[WhitneyMaille]

It appears so.  I have just gone ahead and ordered my Paypal Zettle device so I can at least take credit cards when they have this type of failure in the future.  Once again I will be looking at decoupling my business from Square and researching the alternatives.

[TheRealChipA]

@WhitneyMaille Of course, we all do what we feel we have to do.  But, speaking from experience, this time was Square’s turn to have data center problems.  PayPal will get theirs.  Clover will get theirs.  Etc.  Right now we don’t know anything other than it is down.  Also, good for you for creating a backup plan.  I, too, have one if I need it — Stripe.  That is always a smart move made by smart business owners!

[WhitneyMaille]

Absolutely accurate.  This may be the impetus that helps me to decouple my website from Square and allow it to at least remain functional separate from the payment processor.  Currently that is not the situation for me.

[TheRealChipA]

Oops.  That was for another post!  LOL.  What I meant to say to you is that you are right.  Having all of our eggs in one basket is a calculated risk.  I’m sure you’ll figure out how to spread out that risk for your business once this is all over.  

[PessoAlumni]

Hello Seller Community -

We are experiencing a disruption to our Data Center which is impacting multiple Square Services across all markets. Our engineers are all actively working on a fix ASAP.

It's recommended to stay logged into your account throughout the disruption. There is confirmation that Balance and Transfers are currently affected by this, as well. All updates will be posted on our Status Page (issquareup.com) for all affected countries.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding throughout this process.

[Provision]

While we wait for Square to fix the problems. We should all play a game.

Name a movie that best describes the situation, I'll go first.

Titanic

[WhitneyMaille]

THIS IS AN OUTAGE, NOT "DEGRADED PERFORMANCE"!  BE HONEST!

EDIT: Thank you for updating to reflect "OUTAGE" after it had been ongoing for about 8 hours.

[MiraMan68]

I'm having issues with my other invoicing software as well.  Something weird is going on. Paypal seems like the only reliable platform lately. 

[youngsmith]

I was able to disconnect the internet on my register and enable the Offline Mode to accept payments. According to the Square website, offline payments are processed automatically when you reconnect your device to the internet and may be declined if not processed within 24 hours. Given the significant downtime, what if the issue isn't resolved within that timeframe? Should I consider suggesting to my customers that they bring cash? This is rather inconvenient, especially since Fridays are very busy for restaurants.  https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode# 

[Malala]

Transaction didn't show

[BLBA]

Square seems to be back up, but my savings account I can’t access. It shows on my app but in the browser no where to be found…

[PointBreakTacos]

During the outage I went offline to put through cc sales. My sales report now is missing around $800 in sales. I took pics of my POS transaction totals. When is this going to be resolved and how do we know we are going to get our sales?

[TessC]

Following...this terrifies me, too. 

[PointBreakTacos]

I took pics and have my offline total. If Square doesn’t resolve it I am gone and so are my half a million in sales.

[Bsalty]

I took pictures too - just in case!

[MichiganFarmsta]

It appears all the cash transactions uploaded. Now we are waiting on the CC transactions.  I would guess (hope) these will upload shortly as square gets things up and running smoothly!

[MRALKALINEWATER]

Let's organize a class-action. Square always collect their fees upfront and on time, but I keep losing thousands in revenue due to squares bad product. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

[Donnie-M]

I can say my services are coming back up.  I still can't access a few things, but mission critical seems to be working.  It sucks...yes...but this is a great time to review what your "disaster" power outage, internet down, plans are and how you react as a business to a disruption.