Re: Accepting Yiftee "Gift cards" with Square?

MagicToybox

Hello, My community is using a local "gift card" voucher program that are meant to be used at multiple retailers in town. In order for retailers to accept the vouchers, Yiftee requires retailers to process a "dummy" card through their terminal. I'm curious if anyone knows how this dummy card works. Does it put any additional software into my POS system that operates in the background? Is Yiftee collecting any data from my POS? If so, does anyone know what data may be getting collected?

Thanks for any help. I'm hoping to get answers from Square if possible, but if anyone else has used, Yiftee cards please let me know.

TheRealChipA

Hi there @MagicToybox.. I'm not Square nor a business owner who has used Yiftee. But I'm familiar with the product having used it as a customer before. I'm not sure what you mean by Dummy Card. Yiftee's vouchers (electronic ones OR printed ones) have "virtual" card numbers like credit cards with expiration dates and CVV codes. They are processed just as any card would be through Square's payment processing system. Yiftee collects nothing that any card processing transaction doesn't already give them -- business name and codes, amounts, and whatever else is needed to verify the card and process the payment. And from my experiences with them, the retailers didn't need a special terminal -- they just ran the virtual card information as they would have a credit card in their POS.

The only thing that I will mention is that your customer needs to let you know how much is left on their card before you run it. If they don't and you try to process for more than the balance it will be rejected. Knowing the card maximum ahead of time gives you the opportunity to do a split transaction on the first attempt, if needed.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator
(But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

If my answer helps solve your issue, please take a minute to mark it as a best answer. That way others who are searching this board with similar issues are helped by your experiences.

MagicToybox

Yes, I understand how the vouchers are used and the transaction is processed. But when a retailer joins the program, before they are able to accept the Yiftee card through their POS, Yiftee requires the retailer to run a dummy card transaction through their POS. There is no purchase made, but it seems to be a way for the POS to process software identifying your POS to Yiftee's system and putting it on their network of approved retailers. If you do not run the dummy card transaction, you are unable to accept the Yiftee card vouchers for payment. My question is, how this processs works on the back end, how Yiftee is able to differentiate my POS vs any other, are there any security concerns with allowing Yiftee to identify my POS, and what data Yiftee may be collecting from my system.

TheRealChipA

@MagicToybox Actually, I just read their help documents regarding business activation. I do not read anywhere that running this test transaction in any way identifies your POS other that possible who your merchant account is with -- in this case "sq" for Square. It does, however, prove to Yiftee that you are an actual retailer with a card processing account and their system will receive the same information that any business would provide for normal card transactions. In my case, people who use cards at my business see:

sq *piper s mainstrass

You'd have to ask Yiftee customer support how thy use this information, however. Square will not be able to answer that, other than to tell you they send normal card transaction information to Yiftee as part of the test transaction. My guess is that Yiftee has a record of the business tied to the "dummy card" and that they use that unique card number to identify you for activation in their listings. But only Yiftee can tell you that.

This procedure is pretty normal for business like theirs. And there would be no security concerns other than the fact that you have provided whatever Yiftee requested from you to set up funds transfers with Yiftee vouchers are used at your business.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator
(But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

If my answer helps solve your issue, please take a minute to mark it as a best answer. That way others who are searching this board with similar issues are helped by your experiences.

MagicToybox

Yes, I remember reading that. I guess I'm just concerned that it may have been used as a vector to collect data from my Square system. Maybe I'm just paranoid- Just wondering anyone at Square can confirm that the Yiftee system does not conceal anything in the POS system. I just haven't had a good experience with the Yiftee program, they've been reluctant to share the data about cards processed with my business, and when they did, I found some errors in their data (Duplicated transactions, as well as transaction attributed to me, but without a square transaction number and nothing for date and time in my receipt records). SO I just grew concerned, that perhaps they were doing some sort of data harvesting.

TheRealChipA

@MagicToybox I'll tag the moderators. But, honestly, I do think you are over-thinking this. The test transaction is a normal card transaction, period. Square can only send to the banks the information required by law and nothing more, nothing less. It's a very secure way of running their business. Anyway, tagging moderators now.

@Kassi_@RSosebee1 @_Violet @MayaP @Summer2024 @Summer2024 @Ellie_@Katie_SQ @Laurie_@Sammie_C

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator
(But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

If my answer helps solve your issue, please take a minute to mark it as a best answer. That way others who are searching this board with similar issues are helped by your experiences.