You could add 2.75% to arrive at $102.75, but then when Square takes their cut you only get $99.92. You lost 8¢! That’s because 2.75% of $102.75 is more than $2.75. So let’s get our maths in a row and fix it!

We’re looking for the value x such that x-x*2.75%=y where y is the amount you want to end up with. Simplify that using algebra and you get x*97.25%=y or rather x=y*1/97.25% or x=y*102.8277635%. For you folks without a % on your calculator that’s x=y*1.028277635.

The generalized solution for finding what you should surcharge, compared to what you are being surcharged is x=1/(1-y)-1.

In the $100 range we can drop some of those extra digits to arrive at a surcharge of 2.83%. Since we rounded up this keeps you safe in the $1,000 range too.

Of cource it’s easier to calculate a surcharge of 3%, but that makes you a bit of a jerk. On the other hand you could take the 8¢ hit and call it even, or go down to 2% and share the cost more evenly.

Square lets you (yes, even you!) take credit card payments on your smartphone.  It’s easy and free to sign up and the card reader arrives in a week or so. The idea is to lower the barrier to entry so that anyone can accept a credit card.

Why would you want to do that? I’m planning on selling my lawn mower on Craigslist. My mom and my older sisters are amateur (in the sense that they don’t make a living off it) seamstresses and one of my sisters has had booths at craft fairs. Our local school could have a bake sale. And of course a yard sale is always possible. As more and more of us stop carrying cash with us everywhere we go it’s going to be more and more of an advantage to be able to take credit cards.

Why didn’t PayPal come up with this? I have no idea. It would have fit in perfectly with the kind of stuff they were doing already. I will be surprised if they don’t at least try to buy it.

Of course this is not ideal for everyone. Retailers can often get better rates than 2.75% + 15¢; And square won’t automatically update your proprietary inventory system. But if you’re running a side business, or even just a very small business, then square could be just the thing.

When you get your card reader you’ll probably want to practice swiping cards. Don’t do what I did and authorize large transactions and then cancel them. It takes a few days for those authorizations to fall off your account after they are canceled. Instead just swipe your card with the transaction amount set to $0.

The reader device plugs into your headphone jack so obviously it must send some kind of audible signal. What does the Square reader sound like?

http://andrew.jorgensenfamily.us/files/2010/11/square.mp3

I used a card that expired years ago and for which the account has been closed so at best this gives the clever hacker an expired credit card number and my name.

You can’t see the mark on the bottom carton clearly enough (thanks camera-phone!) but it says 1.5 quarts while the top carton says 1.75 quarts.  Same product, same price, different quantities.  Earlier at another store I saw a carton labeled 48 ounces.  The “Kong Kone” at the grocery store deli also shrunk.

I would rather pay more for the same amount than have Corporate America try to deceive me.

I envision stuffy executives at a board meeting deciding that this was a good idea.

But because I hassled them about it they went a step further on me and called American Express to ask them to call me and have me personally authorize the transaction. That call came through just as we finished with the following multiple-choice questions:

What month was Rebecca born in?
Which of these counties have you lived in?
What month was Bruce born in?

Why does this bug me so much? Because for $7.95 you too can find the answers to these questions and more! I used public record searches to find my high school classmates for our 10 year reunion. If you really want to steal someone’s identity $8 is a small price to pay to do decent job of it.

When American Express called me I had LetsTalk wait while I complained to AmEx and asked them to put a note in my record to not hassle me the next time LetsTalk asks them to. I also asked AmEx if there is some financial incentive for LetsTalk to do this, better rates for better security or something. There isn’t.

I really wish someone would slap LetsTalk for wasting their money and hassling their customers. Please, Nokia, please won’t you slap them? Or fire them. That would work too.

Comments are open on this post for anyone who can think of a legitimate reason for LetsTalk to do this crap.

When I first ordered the device the website accepted the coupon code and my credit card and then said that something went wrong and I needed to call them to get it resolved. To make a long and boring story short: this went on for weeks. They got the code reset and tried again several times. I had direct phone numbers to their sales manager and a few supervisors. In the end they finally got something straightened out and they called me during the several hours wait for commencement to place the order. This was on Thursday exactly three weeks from the first attempt, I was told the shipping would be two business days. But the fun didn’t stop there. . .

Saturday I got an email from Nokia’s order fulfillment partner LetsTalk:

Dear Customer,

Please call us at the telephone number below as soon as possible. Your order cannot be shipped out until we obtain additional information from you.

Sincerely,

Customer Service

So I called and was presented with the biggest load of BS I’ve had to deal with in a long time. They said they needed to ask me a few questions to verify my identity to prevent fraudulent orders. Immediately I knew this wasn’t going to be good. How could they possibly establish my identity beyond the fact that my credit card matched the name and shipping address I gave them. They asked me three questions:

1. Who did you purchase the property at [...] from?
2. Can you give me one of the previous addresses you lived at in [...]?
3. How old is [...]?

To each of these questions I responded with an infuriated complaint at the utter stupidity of trying to verify someone’s identity by comparing their answers with public records. If I am trying to impersonate Andrew Jorgensen and I’ve succeeded far enough to have not only an American Express card but also a new home in his name it would be a very small thing for me to pay for a public record search on the guy so that I can answer these kinds of questions.

To top it all off I got the answer to #3 wrong. I tried to count up in two to three year intervals from myself through my older siblings but I somehow skipped one.

In any case the device just arrived and I’m grateful to finally end that saga. I also left a message for James, the sales manager at Nokia, telling him how LetsTalk is ripping him off and harassing his customers for no reason.

Everaldo, I owe you one. If you ever need a favor from someone in Utah, USA please let me know.