Has anyone had trouble keeping the Square Chip Card Reader charged?

[pattislockets]

Today I tried using my square chip reader at an event.  It was fully charged when I left the house this morning.  About 2 hours into the event, I was able to use the reader to charge a chip card successfully.  About another hour later, the reader was dead.  It wouldn't scan or use a chip card.  I plugged it into a computer that someone nearby had fortunately.  The battery was dead.  Shouldn't the battery life be longer than a few hours?

[nika]

@JulieO- Apologies for the delayed reply! I'm hoping that you were able to get a hold of our support team and that they were able to help you out!

[JulieO]

I contacted support last week by phone and they said that the reader has been discontinued and to use the contactless chip reader.

email support keeps trying to send me a new one but the new one I got didn't work either.  I give up.

You can't buy them online but you can get a new one under warranty if you can get it to work.

Julie

[nika]

Oh I see @JulieO. Sounds like you have our discontinued reader that accepts both the chip and swipe. Sorry about that. If you'd like to look into other options, our Contactless and Chip reader accepts chip cards and comes with a magstripe reader. 

[HeatherC]

I am having this problem as well, trying to use this chip reader/swiper at a festival and I get maybe 4 swipes from a full battery charge. It doesn't matter if it is left plugged in or not, and even when it is charged it only works properly half the time, the rest of the time I'm left manually entering the card And having to pay more. 

I just got this card as a warranty replacement and it is doing the same thing the first piece of junk one did. Right now it had been charging for 3 hours and I plug it in and it says half charged, but was a green light on the charger. 

I've deleted my app and reinstalled it, I'm using a Nokia 6.1 with Android Version 9, with October security patch, so it is fully updated. 

Why are these card readers such junk? I'd rather go back to the swipe one and not deal with the charging at all. I'm about to go to another credit card processor, because this hassle isn't worth the exorbitant fees for entering by hand. 

[nika]

@HeatherC I'm really sorry that's happening. That's very frustrating, especially since you've just received a replacement reader which is still giving you trouble.

Sounds like you've gone through the necessary troubleshooting so far (thank you for trying those steps). Since you've gone through the troubleshooting, you may want to go ahead and reach out to our CS team. One of our advocates will be able to assist further.