Square POS Outage: Business Owners In Crisis

September 8th, 2023 | Updated on September 9th, 2023

There is a widespread Square outage causing multiple service disruptions, including issues with balances and transfers, as confirmed on the platform’s website. Downdetector, a website tracking outages, has reported a surge in problems with the payment app in the past hour.

Square acknowledged the disruptions, stating, “Our engineering team is actively addressing this issue, with confirmed impacts on Balance and Transfers.”

Source

The outage has led to performance degradation and numerous service disruptions, as stated on Square’s website. The company’s engineering team is working diligently to resolve the issue.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, users from various markets have reported problems with Square:

One user posted, “Square is experiencing a nationwide outage. Cashiers at our store can only accept cash transactions.”

@Square is down, nationwide outage. Cashier has been telling me our store can only do cash transactions. Sucks cause most people want to use cards. #Square

— VUDOG-Paw Addict (@Vudog) September 7, 2023

Another user wrote, “Hey Square, what’s happening? We can’t process card payments, and it’s causing major inconvenience.”

Hey @square what is going on? Not being able to process card payments sucks.

— Jessica Neill (@congoblue) September 7, 2023

@square is letting us down. They are not being transparent about the problem. Deliberately telling customers they have no internet connection when they know square’s servers are the problem. #squareoutage #squaredown #DeceptivePractices pic.twitter.com/YEgB2I07B2

— LegalDiva (@visionarylife) September 7, 2023

Square Outage Stumps Business Owners

Square, the online payment platform, faces widespread outages and “degraded performance” in various services, perplexing business owners.

These disruptions affect both domestic and international operations, with Square initially detecting the issue around 3 a.m. on Friday. The company’s engineers are actively working on a solution. As of 10:15 a.m., the “degraded performance” continues.

Square has not disclosed the specific cause, only citing “issues.” They expressed their commitment to resolving the problem, acknowledging the importance of uninterrupted services for businesses.

We are currently experiencing issues with multiple Square services. We understand how important it is for your business that our services be up and running, and we are actively working toward a fix.

We’ll keep you updated at https://t.co/tZnnkr57aK as we learn more.

— Square (@Square) September 7, 2023

Primarily used by small and medium-sized retail and hospitality businesses, Square facilitates contactless payments and credit card transactions.

The outage has left small business owners frustrated, as they claim direct revenue losses due to Friday’s disruption.

Rhiannon Druce, General Manager of Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory, explained that they had to request customers to pay with cash since 80% typically use cards for payments.

The Square platform’s technical issues compound existing challenges, including recent internet problems after storms and hardware replacements, highlighting the broader impact on businesses.