Per-Transaction Processing Limit $79?

[Jonathan5]

I'm currently testing my website's integration with Square using the payment form. Things were running relatively smoothly until all of my test transactions suddenly started returning the error message "The amount exceeds this merchant's per-transaction processing limit". These are merely test transactions, with Square's recommended test credit card number, and almost always in the amount of $79.00. It wasn't a problem until a few minutes ago. Now I can't seem to process test transactions without getting this message.

Anybody know how to fix this?

Thanks!

[Kassi_]

Hi @Jonathan5

I had a couple of additional questions before I dive into this. What website provider are you using to integrate with Square? Have you tried payments with any other credit/debit card? Or just the test one provided? 

[Jonathan5]

Hi Kassi,

Thank you for getting back to me.

My website is hosted by 1and1 Ionos. It's a dedicated server, so the physical box is housed in their facility, but I'm responsible for managing the server itself. It's a Windows 2008 Server. I do all my own website coding from the ground up, so no reliance on tools such as Joomla, Wix or Wordpress.

Regarding testing in general, I've had a number of issues, most of which I've just worked around. For example, using the provided sandbox keys causes the form to not render at all (something going wrong in the nonce acquiring process I haven't been able to pin down), so I've been testing with live keys and the test card instead.

From what I understand, the test card was supposed to result in a successful transaction when you use expiration 12/21 and CVV 111 with any valid zip code, but I would always get a general decline. There's even supposed to be a set of different values you can enter that give you specific types of declines, such as zip code 99999, etc. None of that ever worked for me, but at least the test card was being accepted as a real transaction and returning a decline, so that's what I've been using.

However, something changed on Tuesday night and now it's returning that "amount exceeds this merchant's per-transaction processing limit" error, and it seems to be permanent.

I have no idea if this is a problem with all cards or just the test card because I have no other card numbers I can use without actually running a real transaction on my own credit card (I know I can refund it, but I assume I'll still have to pay the transaction fee -- and with too many tests, risk a fraud alert / account suspension on my card). I'd love to use the test keys, but as I mentioned, they don't seem to work at all.

What's my next available course of action? Can the transaction processing limit be lifted on the test card?

Thank you for your time!

Regards,

Jonathan