Why Can’t Vendors Admit To Shortcomings?

Payment Logistics Static IP Only

tl;dr – Payment Logistics requires ‘advanced’ network setup, which you are responsible for.

I was on the phone with a tech from Payment Logistics, one of the CC processors that Liberty integrates with, along with a client.  To make a long story short, their credit card terminals only work when they have static IP addresses assigned – they do not support DHCP.  This means, each terminal has to be manually configured.

For any SysAdmins or techs out there, you are likely already seeing the shortcomings here.  The device should be able to connect to the network and obtain an IP address via DHCP — IP address management can be managed centrally in the router, thus lifting the burden off of the customer.

By requiring each terminal to have a static IP, you put the burden on the end-user.  If anything changes — e.g. they get a new router — ALL of the credit card terminals have to be reconfigured.

When I pointed out this shortcoming to Payment Logistics, they got defensive and started asking, “What do you know about PA-DSS?”  “What do you know…” — a great way to show you’re more interested in stroking your ego vs. dealing with facts.  After a period of time on the phone, the end-user was calling out which menu options he saw and lo and behold, it has DHCP.  When I asked the Payment Logistics tech why we can’t just use DHCP, he said their terminals currently only work with a static IP, but they have a new version in beta which will support DHCP.

So we took the loooooooong way around them simply stating, “Yes, right now our terminals only support static IPs, which we realize is enough of a shortcoming that we’re adding DHCP functionality and it’s currently in beta.”  Instead of just saying that, they tried to ‘protect’ themselves and get into a pissing contest.

As of right now, I can’t faithfully recommend Payment Logistics to our clients who are running Liberty, as this puts a tremendous amount of burden on the end-user and it’s an obvious shortcoming.  Did Liberty/Resaleworld tell you all of this before they recommended this credit card processor?  Did they go over the amount of work and burden it puts on you?  I’m sure all of you have SysAdmins out there or know how to manually configure your devices’ IP address settings, right?

I am a Software Developer, System Administrator, and consignment software specialist. I currently manage hundreds of consignment workstations, point of sale systems, and database servers all across North America and I am the developer of Peeps' Software, Peeps2Go, and Peeps' Consignor Login for iOS and Android. I've been helping consignment & resale store-owners since 2003. I started The Computer Peeps in February of 2010. Peeps' Software launched in 2016 and is now on hundreds of systems all across North America. I have successfully converted dozens of stores from all of the major consignment software systems. After 20 years of working with consignment stores, I understand the unique challenges consignment & resale store-owners face. From electrical issues in old buildings or strip malls, to advocating for them when their old consignment software keeps crashing.

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