NET PROFITS
By Cathleen McCarthyILLUSTRATION: STEPHAN PARKDo you use a mobile payment system
such as Square, Apple Pay, or PayPal
to sell your jewelry at shows? If so,
you’ve probably also been getting
notifi cations about new card read-
ers designed to process chip (EMV)
cards — and hopefully ordered one.
If you haven’t, do it before your
next live sales event. Using an old-
fashioned reader to process one of
the new chip cards can cost you.
If you’re like me, most of your
own credit cards have been replaced
by now with a version that contains
a microchip as well as a magnetic
stripe on the back. Many stores now
have you insert those at the payment
terminal instead of swiping. Identify-
ing information on those new cards is
encrypted on an embedded micro-
chip, which is much more diffi cult to
counterfeit than the static info on a
magnetic stripe.
Remember the panic after the
Target breach in 2013, when hackers
managed to steal identifying informa-tion for more than a million custom-
ers who had used their credit cards
there? Concern about the increase
in credit card fraud is a major reason
U.S.-based card issuers, fi nancial
institutions, and retailers set a
deadline of October 2015 to put an
EMV (chip) payment system in place.
That’s when liability for counterfeit
fraud shifted from card issuers to
merchants if their equipment does
not support EMV.
“Merchant” doesn’t just mean
big-box chains like Target. If you are
a seller who accepts credit cards, you
are a merchant, too. Which means
you’re technically liable for certain
fraudulent purchases made with
cards you process. You can still safely
swipe cards that don’t have chips, but
you run a risk if you swipe a counter-
feit card that contains a chip.
Note: None of this applies to
online purchases. The liability shift
and EMV card readers pertain to live
payment transactions, such as sellingyour jewelry at craft or trunk shows.
If you accept credit cards for this
kind of purchase, order a card reader
that can process chip cards as well as
magnetic stripes. One way to make
sure you’re covered is to use an all-
in-one reader such as the one PayPal
off ers for $149, with a $100 rebate
if you process $3,000 within three
months. That reader allows custom-
ers to swipe, insert, or tap to make a
contactless payment. Many believe
that last — often called NFC (near
fi eld communication) payment — is
going to overtake all other live pay-
ment methods in the future.
Meanwhile, Square allows you
to transition into the EMV payment
world for as little as $29 for a reader
that lets customers swipe as well as
insert their cards. For $49, refund-
able as a processing credit, you can
get a Square reader that accepts
contactless payments as well. But if
you do this, start checking every card
you process for that little raised logo10lapidary journal )( Jewelry artistsafeguard your payment processing
Give 'Em Credit