Magnetic Stripe Readers

Magnetic stripe readers are used for swiping cards such as gift cards. Like barcode scanners there are good readers and not so good readers. We have tested various stripe readers and have found our results to be varying. The less expensive readers such as those around $50.00 CAD experience many false reads. False reads are when the reader only partially reads the magnetic stripe, essentially capturing an invalid number. This can have serious consequences, as it may lead to activating a card with an invalid number, leading to issues when redeeming. The inexpensive readers allow the user to accidently remove the card from the reader before a full read is complete. We prefer models that create a snug connection between it and the card reducing the likelihood of a user pulling the card upwards and out of the reader prior to finishing the swiping. With that said, we strongly recommended using barcodes on your gift cards instead. If you do require magnetic stripes on your cards, make sure the card is programmed to emulate the pressing of the Enter key. Most readers are pre-programmed with this feature. However, you can refer to the manufacturer's documentation on how to configure the device for automatically emulating the Enter key.

RedTail Gift Cards:
The RedTail Gift Card module provides seamless integration with RedTail POS. While we prefer gift cards to have a barcode instead of a magnetic stripe, our system will accommodate both. If your cards are designed with a magnetic stripe RedTail requires a Track II or Track II reader. The first track must be encoded with a the gift card number while the track two is to have the security PIN. You can also encode the card number on track 2 and the security PIN on track three. It does not matter so long that the card is encoded first before the security PIN. The system reads the first track to obtain the card number followed by the next track for the PIN.

Featured Card Reader:
We recommend stripe readers by MAGTEK