Square outage costs small business owners thousands in lost revenue
Square Cash App outage, payment processors, small business
It was around 2 p.m. Thursday when Adam Blackbill realized he wasn't getting sales reports from his three ice cream shops.
Blackbill has used Square to accept payments for his central Pennsylvania business, Urban Churn, since 2014. He's used to occasional outages. But as the hours dragged on, he got concerned, as his employees couldn't input orders and he couldn't send invoices to wholesale customers or withdraw money.
"Everything we process is through Square, even online," he said. "As an ice cream business we’re about to enter our winter season, so every sale matters."
Urban Churn, which sells all-natural and gourmet ice cream in unusual flavors like sauerkraut or roasted cricket, was one of a slew of small businesses that found themselves thrown into chaos after Square and Cash App, two financial services platforms run by Block, sustained an outage. That caused problems processing sales and even stopped employees from clocking in and out of their shifts.
The problem seemed to have been resolved by Friday morning, but users say a substantial amount of damage was done. Blackbill estimates that his company lost $8,000 to $10,000 in revenue.
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