Unsuccessful credit card attempts

[jrockfl]

How are you currently handling unsuccessful credit card attempts?
Recently, I discovered we were getting some fraudulent checkout attempts.

The order total was way to high. We also have legitimate customers that keep trying the same credit card and it keeps getting declined. I guess they figure if they try 10 times it will magically work.

Do you have a limit on the amount of attempts?
If so, what happens if they reach this threshold?

[thorsten iceland]

What payment gateway are you using?

And what were the specific decline codes you were given by the gateway for the legitimate customers?

For example: 05:Do Not Honor, or 51: Insufficient funds...

(If you can't see the specific decline codes in your gateway back-end, you may need to contact them to find out how to get that information.)

[p5gal5]

At checkout, we attempt the charge, but if the order gets declined, we still allow it to pass through, place it on hold, and try it again from the administrative side the next business day. If it fails a second time, we contact the customer and let them know the card information failed to validate (and to contact us to doublecheck the information).

We used to automatically bounce all declined payments and not allow them to checkout, but decided that we'd rather give it a personal touch (and not allow 10 attempts by the enduser) and reach out to them after the order was placed. I'd say we successfully recoup 80-90% of failed charges.

[jrockfl]

We use authorize.net, im not sure about the specific decline codes. I would need to look into it.

@p5gal5 about what percentage went through successfully the next business day?

[p5gal5]

Pretty low, maybe 10%. It's almost always a data-entry error.