If your card was declined don’t worry. It can happen to anyone and for different reasons. Even the President of the United States had his card declined at a restaurant in New York. Declines can happen for different reasons.
We submit the charge directly to your bank, they have an automated system that determines whether or not to accept the charge. These systems take various signals into account, such as your spending habits, account balance and card information.
These signals are constantly changing so a previously successful card might be declined in the future. Please check the following reasons before contacting us.
Credit Card Information
The first and most common reason is because the information you entered is incorrect. This could be the credit card number, the name, the expiration date or even the billing address. So the first thing you should check is if the information entered is correct. Your bank may require the name to be entered exactly as printed on your card. Check if your account information matches your card information.
Some banks may be very picky about the billing address as well. The best is to update your account information with us to match exactly what is printed in your bank statement. These steps should be the first thing to verify. Making sure all the contact information matches the cardholder’s information, which includes the name, phone, billing address, country and, of course, the full card data will avoid most of the issues.
To resume, the information should be identical to what the credit card company has on file for a transaction approval. If you don’t own the bank account, maybe the primary account holder made changes you are not aware. So make sure to verify if the information is still up to date.
Internet Purchases
It’s not uncommon for your bank to block Internet or foreign purchases, in particular if you never made them before. If your card is new, and you never made an Internet purchase, first call the bank and ask them if your card is approved for foreign and online purchases. More than one customer had their card declined dozens of times just to find out the card bills successfully after calling the bank. Call your bank and let them approve the purchase. In some cases, a bank can block the charge for security reasons, so make sure your card is authorized for foreign transactions (if your card is not from a US bank). We accept cards from anywhere in the world.
Fraud Systems
Just like the previous situation, another reason why your card could be declined is because your banks antifraud system tagged your purchase as risky. This is actually extremely common for Internet transactions. Some banks may call you in order to verify the transaction, others will directly reject the charge without notification. Call your bank and ask them. They usually should be able to approve your charge immediately if this was the reason.
Maybe your card is blocked or it was reported as stolen. Some banks will automatically block a card if they notice several unauthorized or suspicious purchases which they consider fraudulent. Maybe you are not aware that your card is blocked. Remember that even if you made Internet purchases before, a future charge can still be declined by a bank’s fraud systems.
Credit Balance
This is one, if not the top reason why a charge is rejected. In such cases, the bank is not approving the purchase for the amount of the order. Maybe your card is over the limit or you missed a payment. Most banks will decline all future charges if your previous minimum balance was not fully paid. In some cases, there could be a hold charge in your card from another company. An authorized hold is not charge but a pre-authorization which some hotels, car rentals and other services make to a credit card. Those holds can later be authorized or reversed. In the case of authorization holds, they could count towards your credit card balance (particularly true for debit cards) and even if a company does not charge your card it may take up to 10 days until your bank clears them.
As such, you could be over your credit limit and your bank is rejecting the charge for the amount of your transaction. Banks can also reduce your credit limit at any time and usually they will not provide a notification.
Type of Card
Please make sure your card is one of the followings, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Discovery or Diners Club. We accept both debit and credit cards, as well prepaid or gift cards, but only as long as they are one of the above-mentioned cards. If your card is a debit card and it does not have the Visa or MasterCard logo it may not be accepted online. Ask your bank if your card is accepted for card-not-present transactions. Some debit cards are only allowed for local swipe purchases (in-person) in your country so it may not hurt to verify this information with your bank.
Finding more information about the specific decline…
Our billing team can help you with as much information available in our systems. Unfortunately, most declines are very generic and we don’t actually have more information as to why a charge was declined.
Only your bank has the detailed information for each transaction. In our experience, calling your bank can solve the problem in minutes. They can automatically approve the charge or request you to try again while they approve the transaction on their side.
If your bank informs you for any reason they can’t approve your payment, or your card is not approved for internet purchases then please remember that we offer alternative payment methods. You can always upload credits to your account (for example with a wire transfer) and make purchases from your balance. This way you can make one bigger payment without having to worry about any future invoices to your account.
If you verified all of the above information and you still have questions or concerns, please contact our billing team for more information. We are always happy to help out with alternative payment methods.