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What does the "Invalid location" error mean? Is it because I'm outside the US?

I am traveling out of the US. I need to key in a sale but it is erroring out saying "invalid location"
Is this because I am out of the US or because the zip code is invalid?

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Great question. You are only permitted to accept payments within your country of activation so if you created your account in the U.S., you will need to be physically located in the U.S. To process payments. 

 

You can run the sale when you're back on U.S. soil, or have someone back in the states manually enter it for you.

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Square

@pots Check out George's answer above for more information.

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We're trying to find an affordable small Android tablet that will support Square Register, especially offline payments.  All so far will swipe cards and accept online payments just fine, but swipes in offline mode are "Declined. Payment not approved. Invalid Location."

Never get this issue on our Android phones.  Why does this happen?

(Must use offline mode fairly often, and insist on Android operating system!)

 

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Square

Hi @JanG-Mc, check out the information above for help! 

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Super Seller

 

 

Where did you sign up for Square?  Are you in the country you signed up in?  Square has to deal with country boundaries and if you register in the united states but try to swipe in Canada for example you would likely receive this error.  could be as simple as a typo also as manually entered cards need 100% accurate information when entering.

 

Here are other reasons

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5082-why-did-my-payment-fail

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Square

@VanKalkerFarms - Thanks for the help. You nailed this one on the head. 🔨

 

@WellnessNY - I went ahead and merged your thread with one we already had on the topic. Would you mind replying to VanKalkerFarms's questions? We'll be sure to help you get this sorted out. 


Sean
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Product Manager | Square, Inc.
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If you are traveling outside of your home country, can you use the invoice option to have the customer pay? Since you can't process manually keyed in cards while away, is this a work around? 

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I am curious to find this out myself, and am going to try it next time I receive payment, which will be tomorrow. What I have been doing is having my partner run the cards for me from his computer that is in the US, while im traveling.

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If square support doesnt answer back can you please post your results? 

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Hey, so I wanted to let you know that sending an invoice does bypass the travelling issue. I am from the US, but travelling in Australia, invoicing a client in the US and it worked great, and I have done it a couple times now. I do not know if it would work to invoice a client in another country from the one you have your account in though, as in, if I invoiced someone here in Australia, but my account originates in the US, but who knows, it's worth a try.

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Great thanks! That is what I wanted to know. If you can invoice while traveling back to your home country. Great that it can work! 

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I'm in Mexico with a client and trying to charge his card to pay for a job I'm doing for him back home in AZ.  The transaction was declined for "Invalid Location." Do I have to wait until I get back to AZ?

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Square

Hi @Waldie-Holgate — It looks like another seller had the same question, and received an answer. Check out this thread for more details. 


Sean
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Product Manager | Square, Inc.
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Has anything changed with processing internationally? I'l be at an event in Japan and would like to accept credit cards. 

 

Please advise

 

R Jones

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Admin

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: “International Shipping"

 

 

@alphaone I moved your post here because other sellers asked the same question. At this time you can only accept payments in the country that you activated your account in.

 

This means if you activated your account in the United Sates, you won't be able to accept credit card payments in Japan at your event. You'll only be able to accept card payments in the US.

️ Helen
Seller Community Manager

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On iOS you can super easily spoof your location by connecting your iPhone to your Mac. No jailbreak needed:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKINQQ_elaY&list=PLnzygnWe6EfmuGG__EpGrHU-4U4euZVPw&index=4

 

After this your card readers will work flawless outside of the US.

 

 

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Hi @Donald_M- thanks for participating in the Seller Community! However, spoofing geolocation violates Square's Terms of Service.

 

Wanted to chime in to clarify since we don't want any Sellers running into trouble by attempting this. 

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Undestood... just replied to the member who stated “you are not able to”.... technically you are able to, but just I guess you shouldn’t, which was your (justfied) point.

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Can´t see the video...

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Is there a code to access the video?

 

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It seems the video was taken offline...just search “spoof geo location iphone” on YouTube. 

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This reply created from merging an existing thread: "why can't i use square when I had an event out of United States" The author has been notified via email.

 

I had an event in April in Colombia. I tried many times charging my customers, keep declining. I am leaving Miami next week and I have an event in Colombia. Please help!! what should I do so I can charge the people in Colombia?

thanks

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