Zettle by PayPal security alert

stationcafe

Has anyone using a Zettle by PayPal been affected by the security alert (3pm Sunday 7th September). Ours crashed when the security alert happened and is now a ‘brick’. We have spoken to customer services who are unable to help! Not their fault. The terminal
is not a mobile phone and customer services can’t explain why the alert come through. They are being very vague on this point. The only option is to buy another terminal 😠 Surely we aren’t the only users who have this problem. Any ideas please. Thank you. 

MyRealNameToo

Which type of Zettle device do you have?

If it's the terminal, rather than the reader, then it does have its own embedded SIM so in theory would have received the broadcast alert too as it operates on 4/5G. 

You're unlikely to be the only ones and PayPal may need a certain mass of complaints to come in before they take it seriously. 

stationcafe

Thank you for commenting. We just have the terminal (no scanner). Very frustrating as affected business yesterday. We asked if they had received calls from other users, who had this issue - they wouldn’t answer! So I have to spend another £149.00 plus VAT or look elsewhere. We are a very, very small business and the location premises doesn’t have broadband. Not many options available to us in this instance. 

MyRealNameToo

stationcafe said:

Thank you for commenting. We just have the terminal (no scanner). Very frustrating as affected business yesterday. We asked if they had received calls from other users, who had this issue - they wouldn’t answer! So I have to spend another £149.00 plus VAT or look elsewhere. We are a very, very small business and the location premises doesn’t have broadband. Not many options available to us in this instance. 

The reader is the smaller device that has to be paired with a mobile or something else with an internet connection whereas the terminal is a standalone device. 

Id be calling them back again, likely more businesses have realised the problem today or tomorrow. 

Presumably you've already tried to do a factor reset etc? Have you left it on until its battery dies and then tried charging and restarting it?

stationcafe

We have a terminal, definitely. It’s standalone. We can’t power the device on at all. It’s a ‘brick’. Sadly, Zettle aren’t interested. 

flaneurs_lobster

Forgive me if this has been done, from the Zettle help pages

How do I force restart my Terminal?

1. If you need to force restart your Terminal for any reasons, please long press on the power button for about 10 seconds and the Terminal will restart itself. 
2. If step one didn’t work, please insert a pin into the little hole located on the right-hand side of your Terminal to cut the power. You can then press the power button again to turn it on. 

I'd expect to see some online chatter if there had been a widespread Zettle deathray attack, not seeing anything from my searching.

rk2620

I'm now having the same problem.  I bought the terminal a few weeks back (before the emergency broadcast signal), powered it on for the first time as soon as I received it to make sure it worked, I've just switched it on for only the second time to complete the set-up process and have received the CODE:2 security alert and message that the terminal is locked.

After a couple of hours, I finally managed to speak to someone at PayPal customer services, they sent me a link to upload potographs of the terminal showing the screen, the serial number, and all four corners of the terminal (presumably they wanted to check I hadn't damaged it or been trying to tamper with it).

Eventually PayPal customer service said they had escalated the issue to Zettle and advised the terminal may need to be replaced.  The PayPal team said they will 'probably' just send out a new terminal but that the Zettle team with contact me within 48 hours to confirm.

Presumably they are looking to replace it as it's a new terminal, if you've had yours for a while and it's out of warranty they may say they are not liable to replace it.

Hope it has/will work out for you.