A magical payment system.

Remember the old days?

You would be browsing art at a street fair, decide there was something you simply had to have and would then go through agonies while the merchant struggled with one of those massive imprint machines with a slider to record your credit card information. This was not only likely to jam, you were also giving out your credit card number, thus making a massive and unwarranted assumption of trust. Not good.

Well, all of that just changed.

For the photographer setting up at a street fair to sell his prints all that is now needed is one of these and a 3G or later iPhone or a 3G iPad:

The Square card reader attached to my 3G iPhone.

The card reader is free when you sign up with Square, which I did immediately the service was announced a month ago. They finally shipped the device, which plugs into the headphone socket and has a slot for swiping the credit card.

Now I would love to relate that I had just sold a dozen big prints for thousands of dollars, but until that happy day comes around, I decided to do the manly thing and charge myself $1.00 to see how things worked.

After setting up my Square account and downloading the iPhone app, I keyed in the charge amount thus:

Next, I signed using my finger as a pen:

Hitting ‘Continue’ I saw:

Now my client (me!) wants a receipt:

After entering the client’s email (mine!) I saw:

I was done.

Now going to my desktop HackPro, there were two emails waiting for me.

The first was to me as vendor:

I went to the link and set up my bank account information to receive the payment.

The other was to my buyer:

By clicking the link the buyer can see the full receipt – by the way the map location is about a mile out!

Buyer’s receipt.

Many have remarked on the remarkable resemblance I bear to Cary Grant and I confess it’s true. It’s all I can do to keep the women away.

Is that mind blowing or what? You can learn more by clicking here.

You don’t have to restrict the use of this device to photo sales; any Craigslist sale can now be advertised “Will accept credit cards” and the beauty is that if you swipe the card rather than keying in the number, your buyer has the immense comfort of knowing that the credit card number is never known to you. The fees charged for a swiped card are also lower than for one whose number has been keyed in manually. See below.

Charges?

I have read that the amount limitations will be phased out as your use grows but do not yet have details. This elegant solution mimics the dedicated iPod Touch devices used by sales clerks in the Apple Store. Given that the little attachment can be removed and stashed in a coin pocket it’s a perfect working solution for anyone seeking to accept credit card payments as long as wifi or 3G cell phone service is available at the payment location.