The recent system-wide outage of the Square payment processing service left thousands of small-business owners across the United States without their only source of income. Without the ability to accept payments, many businesses have had to close for the day and lose out on important revenue. The longest bout of the outage lasted 8 hours, resulting in thousands of dollars in lost revenue. It is estimated that small businesses affected by the outage lost an estimated $1.2 million in potential sales. The outage was especially hard on traveling and carnivals, as those businesses depend on being able to accept credit and debit cards. To help those businesses recover, Square has provided an automated refunding service to refund lost payments.
