A payment is classified as ‘Failed’ when the transaction is declined by the customer's card issuer or bank. Payments can fail for several reasons. Listed below are the 10 most common causes for failed payments. Please note that there could be other reasons aside from those listed below.
Insufficient Funds
Besides a customer’s account lacking sufficient funds to process a payment, a customer's bank/card provider may provide Ezypay with an Insufficient Funds response code due to many reasons, including:
- The customer has pending transactions that have not been processed yet.
- The customer exceeded the daily limit on the day of the debit.
- If the customer only happened to deposit the funds after the deduction (beginning of the business day on the scheduled billing date). The minimum balance required needs to be in the account after a deduction.
- The customer is using a bank account debit, which takes 3 working days to process, and has had other deductions occur during the processing period.
- The customer is using a bank account that does not allow direct debits.
- The customer's payment method is used by more than one user.
Invalid Payment Method
This usually happens when incorrect banking details are entered into the system by a customer or staff member, resulting in the transaction being rejected by the bank. To resolve this, the banking details need to be updated. The customer is then re-billed to recover the failed payment amount.
Limit Exceeded
The transaction exceeded the customer's payment method’s daily withdrawal or activity limit.
Expired Credit Card
A credit or debit card transaction is usually declined with the response code "Expired Card", due to one of the two reasons:
- The card expiry date has passed
- The card expiry date is incorrect.
Ezypay offers certain exemptions from this, meaning that we can continue to perform successful transactions in specific regions, even on an expired credit card. Ultimately, the customer’s bank decides if they’ll approve or decline the payment attempted on an expired card.
Authority Withdrawn/Authority Not Held
The payment may fail with the response code "Authority Withdrawn" or "Authority Not Held", due to the following reasons.
- The customer had contacted their bank disputing an Ezypay charge and requested to block or withdraw debit authority to stop any future Ezypay charges.
- The bank had determined the charges as fraudulent due to more than one person being tied to the same payment method.
Bank Reversal
The customer, or the bank itself, can perform a bank reversal if it suspects that the transaction is unauthorised. In this case, the customer’s bank is contacted to clarify the reason for the reversal. Once satisfied, the customer is re-billed for the collection of the failed payment amount.
Do Not Honour
There can be multiple other reasons why a payment can fail with this response code, but not limited to bank system errors. In such scenarios, it would be best if the customer contacts their card issuer to resolve this issue before retrying the payment. They can also provide an alternate payment method.
Lost or Stolen
This failed payment reason is provided by the card provider if the card used was reported as lost, stolen or fraudulently used. In this case, a new payment method will need to be provided to resume billing.
Suspect Fraud
This failed payment reason is provided by the card provider if the payment method was blocked due to suspected fraud. In this case, a new payment method will need to be provided to resume billing.
Bank System Error / Ezypay Error
This failed payment reason code appears if an error occurred while processing the transaction.
While it’s almost impossible to completely avoid payment failures, understanding why they happen can help you work around the issues that may cause them. Many times, the causes of failed transactions are avoidable. When payment failures do occur, you’ll know the best way to manage them.
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