When you have a customer with any error in the status, you can see more details for this error checking the Orders section. You will have three tabs, Processed, Upcoming and Errors. If you click the last one, you will see a table with all the order errors in the last column. If you hover over, the tooltip text will share more details about the cause.
Error messages
Error |
Solution |
| Your card was declined. | Contact and inform customer. |
| Cannot charge a customer that has no active card. | Contact and inform customer. |
| Customer needs to update credit card. | Contact and inform customer. |
| Your card has insufficient funds. | Contact and inform customer. |
| Could not retrieve shipping info. | |
| INSUFFICIENT_INVENTORY | Update inventory in Shopify. |
| Variant or option not found on your ecommerce platform for... | Previous variant was deleted and needs to be updated. Visit Fixing removed variants. |
| CARD_UPDATED_NOW_PENDING_NEXT_ATTEMPT | A customer has a decline due to card issues. We don't validate the credentials of the new card until the next order is processed. You can remedy this by just processing the charge immediately. |
If a customer gets a card decline error, they will get an automatic email asking them to update the card. If a customer periodically gets card decline errors even after updating, likely the customer should contact their bank to figure out what's going on. At that point, there's usually something specific to their account that is blocking transactions from happening.
Understanding card declines
Cards can be declined for a variety of reasons that depend upon the customer's bank or credit card. If a customer gets a card decline error, they will get an automatic email asking them to update the card. Card declines are flagged by the cardholder's institution. These banks never share with us the detailed information on the reason for these declines. Most often the situation is that the bank didn't recognize the company and as a precaution flagged the charge anyway in hopes that the cardholder will contact them in the event that this was not in error.
The only way to find out more detailed information about why a payment was declined is to ask your customer to get in touch with their bank to confirm the reason for the decline. If a customer periodically gets card decline errors even after updating, likely the customer should contact their bank to figure out what's going on. At that point , there's usually something specific to their account that is blocking transactions from happening.
Customize the Card declined notification
When a customer gets a card error, the system sends an email with a link to update their card. You can make adjustments to this notification:
- In the ReCharge Dashboard, click the wrench icon.
- Select Notifications.
- Under Customer Notifications, click on Card declined.
- Make adjustments to the notification in the textboxes. You can also use variables in your notifications.
- When finished, click Save.
Retry card declines
When a customer updates their credit card, the system will automatically retry the charge for the order. The system will also retry the error charges the day after the order initially errors, and then on 6-day intervals up to 60 days.
If it is still being declined at that point, they'll be marked as Closed/Max Retries Limit Reached. You can view the errored charges by clicking Orders in the ReCharge Dashboard and selecting the Errors tab. You can manually retry the charge by clicking on Retry Charge on the right of the order.
Reach out to your payment processor
For more information on failed charges, declined charges, and fraud filters it is best to reach out to your specific payment processor.
- Stripe: Understanding declines and failed payments
- Braintree: Transactions - Declines
- Authorize.net: Why was my transaction declined?