Tap on android phone charging my own card in my purse instead of customer card!

[Yoanie]

HELP! Anyone one else having trouble with your phone picking up a credit card in my purse instead of the customers card being tapped on my phone? I paid over $500 this am at a Art show for my own work before I figured out what was happening! Can't call square they are closed. Now. Support hung up on me twice waiting on hold today! Help me Mr. Wizard!

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @Yoanie.  While I’ve never heard of that happening in this forum, it does happen with chip cards, sometimes.  I’m sorry you lost money for it, but glad you realized it was happening.  I’m not sure what Square can do about it because the problem is probably that your purse is too close to your reader.  Somehow, when your customer taps, the reader sees your card as having the stronger signal and uses it.  So….

Always try to keep your purse at a good distance from your reader — at least 3 feet.  Or, if you don’t want to do that, you should look into RFID sleeves/wallets for your cards.  These shield the signal that the cards emit to keep readers from inadvertently reading them.  Google “RFID sleeves” and you’ll see lots of options, because you are not alone in running into this problem!

Best,

[Candlestore]

@Yoanie ;

It is a good idea to have a RFID sleeve anyway since I had one of my tap cards information stolen from me by a TAP skimmer.  The person used it to charge $350 at a Microsoft store located in NY and then for a meal in Utah within 24 hrs.  The day it happened I notified my bank and got my money back.  Microsoft at first wanted to fight it saying I used it for Microsoft Office Product since it was a business card.  2 problems with that theory,  First at the time I used LibreOffice not MS Office, 2nd they looked at the transaction and it was for Xbox games or subscription.    Now I turn off my Credit Cards at all times and enable then right before making a purchase through my Banks App.  Sometimes I forget which Card I turned on and then get denied, but at least my $$ is not get stolen by these thieves anymore.