Charging Credit Cards Part II

Customers credit card expires....

[Hubie]

Your running your service website....maybe leasing software, maybe giving advice, etc etc

Whatever it is, it's a monthly fee, and you charge the customers card monthly. UNTIL...you get the dreaded "this credit card has expired".

What to do? The beginners answer is "contact the customer and get udpated information". Easier said than done. Even if they love your service, the hassle of giving out your credit card # (on the net) isnt everyone's favorite thing to do or first priority. I get about 10-20% of these type of customers to update their info.

What do you guys do? Best practices?

Hubie the Nubie

[LifeinAsia]

You have your system check for cards about to expire and send notification to the customer well ahead of time alerting them to update their information. Remind them their service will be turned off until you can charge their card.

[wrockca]

Yes, I agree....

When setting up recurring billing, you should always set an alert for yourself at a 60/30/15 day intervals to send reminders to the customer that their payment method is expiring in the near future.

[philbish]

You could guess the new expiration date.

[Hubie]

any way to guess right? is there a pattern?

[abbeyvet]

You could guess the new expiration date.

You risk a LOT of VERY cross people doing that. I know I have just not updated dates because I didn't want to. Call it unsubscription by inertia. But it's my perogitive to choose that method, definitely not yours to guess anything about a new card, whose details I never gave you.

[Corey Bryant]

For the most part, gateways, transaction processors, and card associations do not validate the expiration date. They won't accept the card if it is expired though.

You could run into other issues if you attempt to change the expiration date on the credit card value. The expiration dates are there for a reason - not just for the consumer, but the issuing bank

-Corey

[bwnbwn]

You didn't state before the service or after the service. If you are charging after you have performed a service then you do have an issue

if before then sending out an email is fine asking them to check and make sure there account is correct and remind them of the coming charge.

If after then you will have to do contact them for the info.

Either way it is good to notify them as I got one from MSN letting me know of a charge coming in April to check my card and make sure it is up to date. This is good business and I will go to my account and check this.