A service outage at Square left Bay Area businesses struggling to make sales without access to its payments platform.
In a statement posted on its website, Square said it began investigating a service disruption related to its data center at 11:47 a.m. As of 4:48 p.m., the San Francisco-based company said it was still working on a solution.
Aaron Bergh, owner of Calwise Spirits Co. in Paso Robles, said he noticed the disturbance around noon. In the next three hours, his company generated around $1,000 in sales – all without being able to process credit card payments.
Instead, employees wrote down credit card numbers to be charged later or conducted transactions in cash, limiting customers’ spending options, he said.
In the five years he’s been in business, Bergh said he’s never experienced a Square outage that lasted longer than half an hour. Even in these cases, the platform would still allow companies to collect credit card information. This time, he said, he couldn’t even log into his account.
When he tried to call Square customer service, all he received was an automated message about the outage, Bergh said. Square said the disruption caused longer wait times on the hotline.
“We are taking a huge risk by allowing the product to leave the door, with the possibility that their card will be declined when we attempt to process it,” Bergh said.
Reach Megan Fan Munce: [email protected]