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Etowah Valley 2536 Error?!?

Ok, I just swiped 2 different cards on 2 different meters at the wash, and waited about 15 minutes. Neither transaction showed up on my account, and they both approved the card and allowed the wash to run. I have no idea how much money I have lost over the past few days giving away free car washes. I will have to check my card statement and see if it's actually charging the customers. My recommendation at this point is to disable the meters.

Lighthouse.
 
I also spoke with Jim this morning. He has sent a test unit to Bluepay so that they could test the system which I believe will help expedite the solving of this issue. Regardless (and Jim agreed), I just want the problem solved. Quit pointing fingers and just fix it so that I can make some damn money. What Bluepay fails to realize is that they (employees, etc.) are there getting paid and we are just another client that is calling up and complaining. We on the other hand have a livelihood that we are trying to maintain and they are severely crimping that.
 
If the card is actually charging the customer (which has yet to be proven) I would think that these funds could be recovered. If not, unfortunately, your customers received free washes at your expense. I once set up an account on a refurbed Unitec. After the first month the customer had no funds in their account. Found out that the money has going into the account of the previous owner of the entry system. It took a month or so but the money was recovered.
 
As of 2:00 pm the problem seems to have been resolved. I arrived at one of my washes and noticed that none of the indicator lights were flashing so I swiped my card and it cleared on the first try!!! I drove home real quick and checked to make sure the transaction posted on bluepay, all looks good.

Thank God, now I can leave on my vacation tomorrow morning.
 
Your more trusting than I am. I also spoke to Jim today, and this has been going on for over a week now. At times, everything works like it should. Most of the mornings seem to be plugging up BluePays modem banks and not allowing the cards to process. One litte feature that I don't like, is that it does allow the swipe and the customer to wash. As soon as the congested line, or broken phone line is repaired, then the transaction should process. I'm quite nervous that I'm giving everyone washes on "credit", until the lines clear out. One other thing is that I power cycled all my meters to try and clear up the issues. Once this was done, any transactions waiting to get to BluePay just went down the toilet. I was disabling all the credit cards and putting up signs when Jim called, and he assured me that it was ok to leave them processing. I swiped 2 of my personal cards this morning at 9:30 am, and still have not seem them hit my account, even though serveral others have cleared this afternoon. I'm obviously not convinced I will be getting all the revenue that I should be.

Lighthouse
 
If someone is sitting on the fence looking to add CC system to bays this thread is making us nervous about this system ,although this is a system that has been highly rated ???????
 
I agree. Sorry for the negativity. I was more interested in keeping everyone with the equipment up to date and informed. Jim's system is state of the art and does things that I was unable to find with anyone else's system. Jim is very good to work with, and has a great product. The only problem that I can see is that you are forced to use BluePay. Which in this case, is the reason for the problems. I'm not saying that there is some other merchant service that is problem free, or any better, but I would at least like the option. My ACW goes through my local bank. The fees are lower, and if something like this happened, I would be at the ladies desk in less than 15 minutes and be able to let them know the severity of the issue. I looked at a lot of systems and took feedback from the forum before buying the system, and even my equipment guys that were pushing unitec on me have admitted that Jim has a great system.

Hopefully there will be no more posts with problems.

Thanks,
Lighthouse.
 
I am still not accepting anything. My lights have been blinking non-stop since last night. What should I do? Is everyone else's working correctly? I could probably reset them, but I would lose all those transactions? Is the system back up and working? Just looking for some input.
 
Bubbles,
Sorry for the late reply. I did not see any transactions today or sytem checks. I just got back from the wash and put up signs and set the cards to off. I'm not losing any more money over this deal. My phone billl is going to be outrageous this month with all the calls. Since I use the same phone line for my automatic, I assume I have lost business there also. I'm going to speak to Jim and Amanda on Monday and see about restitution, or waiving our fees for the month. I can't believe that in over a week, they can't resolve the issue. What are your thoughts?


Lighthouse.
 
I did not process one card all day. I had to disable it in my auto cashier. I do anywhere from $500 to $750 per week in credit cards. Mostly through my automatic. This is killing me. I truly feel the problem is on Bluepay. The phone number my timers call is always busy. I can't see how that is my equipments fault. I'm not sending any more than one test per day (when the line is not busy, no test today). I'm not clogging their system. THEY ARE NOT ANSWERING! If they need additional modems due to higher traffic, then that is a good thing, they should say "thank you" and get the modems!
 
I think we need to stick together on this one and get on Jim and BluePay. Someone owes us money. I don't care who's fault it is, but I want it fixed ASAP, and then we can start discussing restitution. I still have not seen the transaction post from Friday morning when I used my personal card. Jim assured me that the timers would save the transactions and post them when they could get through to BluePay. Been 3 days now, and still don't see it. I bet I don't ever see it either. Any electronic equipment only has so much memory.

Lighthouse.
 
Well, one of my bays and vac must have pushed through their transactions becasue the light was not blinking this morning. I like the idea of not paying merchant fees this month except for the fact that I haven't done too many transactions thus far...
 
I installed two bays of Jim's system about two weeks ago. The system has not worked one full day since it was installed. This does not look good.
 
Talked to Jim a little while ago, and he said the issue is with AT&T. There is one place where all the calls get routed through, and they have a "noisy" line that prevents the info from getting through. This is frustrating. The issue is not Etowah or BluePay, but the phone company. If anyone hears something relevant, please let us know.
 
I've worked on the wireless side of the phone spectrum for 10 years. If there is a noisy line somewhere, they should be able to route traffic around it, or move traffic to another pair in a very short amount of time. The big land line companies are notorious for never admitting that they have a problem. When testing with them in the past, the problem would just get resolved, and when asked what they found, they would never admit that it was their fault. "It just recoverd." "We didn't do anything." The biggest problem now, is trying to get our damages. AT&T will obviously not be forking out a check to BluePay or us.


Lighthouse
 
I was out of town last week and saw this thread and checked out my etowah valley system and I have been having the same problems as reported here. i hope they get the phone line fixed soon. It is only on my SS bays and no automatics luckily.
 
Jim sent me the audio file today of his modem calling into bluepay. It is extremely noisy. Probably one of the worst sounding lines I have ever heard. The worst part is that there really is nothing that we can do...
 
My question is why do all of the gas station's units work. No one would find that this is just part of the normal. Why isn't this stuff going over the Internet, I thought that everyone was being forced to go this route.
 
I talked to Jim today. Everything will be changing soon. We will no longer be tied to BluePay. He obviously needs some time to get everything setup, but it's all in the works. Still need to get BluePay's problem fixed for the short term.


Lighthouse.
 
I installed 2 of the Etowah valley credit card readers about 2 months ago in my selfserve bays. To date I have done $34 in sales. I thought it was a big mistake installing these credit card readers due to the very low volume of people actually useing them. Maybe they are getting used more than I think they are, but are just not registering.
 
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