During the Holidays?
The good news is that the new P2Pe Credit Card processing has the added security of encrypted transmission of credit card information. This is accomplished with an encryption key that is hard coded into the devices: the UIC PP795 and the encrypted IDTech Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR).
The bad news is that if these devices fail, the unit has to be sent back to the manufacturer and the turnaround can be over a month. Even buying replacements will take at least a few weeks.
We strongly recommend anyone using the latest technology to consider a backup plan and how it affects your security policies. Having a spare, even if it’s a simple encrypted MSR, is a good idea.
A simple encrypted MSR is an inexpensive solution even though it can’t process debit cards (it doesn’t have a customer PIN Pad). As an added service, we have decided to maintain a limited quantity of these devices as backups at our office. Even though they will not have the full one year warranty, we can get them shipped out over night.
