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Troubleshooting Card Payments

Dave McNamara
Dave McNamara
  • Updated

This article is about how to troubleshoot Card Payments. You’ll find information on:

 

Declined Payments

There may be times when a payment is declined or not authorised.

When a payment is declined, this may be due to the following:

 

Payment declined: failing 3D Secure checks

3D Secure (3DS) is a method of authentication which provides an additional layer of security against fraudulent transactions. 3D Secure verifies online card payments using the cardholder’s identity.

A payment may be declined if the customer doesn’t complete the 3D Secure challenge or provides information which doesn’t match the details held on file with the customer’s Issuing Bank.

Read 3D Secure and Strong Customer Authentication for more information.

 

Payment declined: failing Address Verification or CV2 checks

AVS and CV2 checks are designed to help reduce fraud by detecting suspicious activity. AVS uses the address details provided by your customer to verify that their address is registered to the card being used. 

CV2 checks verify that the code is the correct one for the card used.

Payments may be declined during AVS or CV2 checks for the following reasons:

  • A mismatch between the customer’s address in Spektrix and the address registered with the customer’s bank.
  • The address checking rules set up with your Payment Service Provider have caused the transaction to be rejected.

In these cases, you may want to check with the Customer that the address on their Customer Record matches the address registered with their bank.

Read Address Verification Service (AVS) and Card Verification checks (CV2) for more information.

 

How to check if a Customer has been charged

There may be instances where a customer thinks they have been charged but hasn’t received a confirmation of the Order.

To check if a customer has been charged, follow these steps:

  • Look through your Open Transactions. These are Orders that have been started but not completed. Finding the transaction you’re looking for in Open Transactions would indicate that it has not been completed.
  • Search for any Customer Records. If you can’t find the order under their Customer Record, search by Postcode/Zip code/Postal Code to check for Customer Records with misspelt names or email addresses.
  • Search for Orders. You may want to search for Orders using a date range. Using a specific date range may help narrow the search results.
  • Look at the Sales History for the Event Instance. If the Customer knows the Event and Instance, you can look at the Sales History to track any Orders.
  • Run a Payments Report. This will help you find any transactions that match the amount, or date when the payment was taken. You can use this information to search for the Order.

If, after searching you can’t find any related Orders, the next step is to search for payments using your online Payment Service Provider portal.

 

Searching for Payments with your Payment Service Provider

You can search for any payments by logging into your Payment Service Provider portal. Go to the section below relevant to your Payment Service Provider.

 

Opayo

  • Login into MyOpayo
  • Click Transactions (for online payments) or Card Machine Transactions (for Chip & PIN payments)

To learn more about searching for Transactions, read How to use MyOpayo.

 

Worldpay

To learn more about searching for payments in Worldpay, read Searching for payments.

 

Authorize.Net

To learn more about searching for payments in Authorize.Net, read What reporting and search options are available in the Merchant Interface.

 

Moneris

  • Log into your Moneris portal
  • Access your Merchant Direct or Go portal from the list
  • Go to Reports > Find a Transaction

To learn more about searching for payments in Moneris read Find a Transaction Module.

 

Ambiguous Authorisations

When you take a Chip & Pin/Chip payment, you’ll usually see an authorised or declined message. If you don’t see either of these messages, this indicates that Spektrix isn’t clear if the payment has been authorised or declined. This is what we call an ambiguous authorisation.

TIP: Chip & Pin/Chip payments are only available to users of Spektrix Payments, Opayo or Worldpay (US only).

  • A temporary blip in the connection while a Customer makes a purchase online. This means it isn’t clear if the card details have already been transmitted.
  • A temporary blip in the communication between Spektrix, Payment Service Provider, Payment Gateway, or the Customer’s bank.
  • A failure in connection or service from either the Customer’s bank, card provider or 3D Secure services.

Ambiguous payments display in the Basket/Cart as Awaiting authorisation. Underneath the Awaiting authorisation message you’ll see a TX Code (also known as an authorization number). You can use this to search for a payment:

TIP: Chip & Pin/Chip payments may take up to 24 hours to show in your Payment Service Provider’s portal

Before clicking Confirm or Delete, you should check to see if the payment appears in your Payment Service Provider’s portal. Read Searching for Payments with your Payment Service Provider for more information.

TIP: If you click Confirm and you haven’t received the payment, you’ll need to take payment again.

If you click Delete and you have received the payment, you will charge the customer twice if you take payment again.

Once you have confirmed the Payment is showing in your Payment Service Provider’s portal. You can confirm the Payment in Spektrix, by clicking Confirm:

If the payment has been declined, remove the payment from the Basket/Cart by clicking Delete:

 


This article should give you the information you need to troubleshoot card payments. To learn more about payments, visit the Manage Payments section of the Support Centre.