Secure online credit card transactions are processed in real-time on behalf of the PHYMAT by the authorized merchant payment service provider LianLianPay using the highest levels of security available on the market.
Payments can fail for a variety of reasons and it’s frustrating when they result in the loss of legitimate business. Many payments fail for good reason and do so to minimize the possibility of fraudulent payments.
Why a credit card payment might fail？
There’re three possible reasons why a credit card payment might fail. Each type of failure is handled differently.
- Payments declined by card issuers
- Blocked payments
- Invalid API calls
Payments declined by card issuers
When a charge is submitted to the issuer of your customer’s card, they have automated systems and models that determine whether or not to authorize it. These systems analyze various signals, such as your customer’s spending habits, account balance, and card information such as the expiration date, address information, and CVC.
Unfortunately, most declines are categorized by the card issuer as “generic” so it’s not always possible to know exactly why a payment was declined. If all of the card information seems correct, it is best to have your customer contact their card issuer and ask for more information.
So, it should be understood that PHYMAT has no control over such transaction refusal. Your credit card company would even not disclose to PHYMAT the exact reason for your transaction to fail.
1. Switch to an alternative credit card
In case of a transaction failure, PHYMAT recommends first trying to use an alternative credit card, or giving it another try with the same credit card again but at a later time. In most cases, this would solve the issue.
2. Get in touch with your credit card company
Should the transaction continue to fail you might want to get in touch with your credit card company. Your credit card company will be able to check the transaction log for your credit card and help fix the problem. In some cases, your credit card company would need to pre-authorize the transaction for you before you can process the transaction online on the PHYMAT web pages.
3. Use PayPal online payment
Note that PHYMAT also accepts online payments through PayPal. Alternatively, you may want to try using PayPal instead as a means of online payment which is both flexible and easy to use.
4. Consider wire transfer as the last choice
In case none of the online payment options would work for you or your administration does not allow you to use your credit card for online payments there is still the alternative to arrange a regular ‘offline’ transfer of money into the PHYMAT bank account. Wire transfer payments however do create administrative overhead, they require additional time for processing, involve bank charges, etc., and should therefore only be considered if other options fail (contact PHYMAT for details or to request an invoice).
Common reasons why payments fail
- Your credit card limit was reached (insufficient funds)
- – Check your credit limit. You might have reached your daily or total credit card limit on the day you tried to charge your card. If this is the case, ask your credit card company to increase your limit.
- The charge exceeded the maximum amount allowed for a single charge
- – Check the maximum amount your card can be charged at a single time. If the declined charge is higher than this amount, ask your credit card company to increase the limit
- Your card reached the maximum number of charges allowed in a period:
- – Check how many times your card can be charged in the given time period. If you reached this amount, ask your bank to increase the limit, wait until your card can be charged again, or make a payment with a different payment method.
- Your card doesn’t accept charges from an online source
- – Make sure your card allows online transactions. If it doesn’t, talk to your credit card company about allowing these charges. Or use another card
- Your card doesn’t allow international transactions
- – If you’re making payments from abroad, make sure your card accepts international charges. If it doesn’t, ask your bank to change this or use another card.
- Your card is not authorized for transactions of the classification type MO/TO
- – contact your financial institution to allow transactions of classification type MO/TO (which stands for mail order/telephone order)
- Wrong expiration date
- – Review the expiration date on your credit card. If your card expired, use another card
- Wrong credit card number
- – You should get an error message indicating the card number is not valid. If not, carefully check the card number when filling out the form.
- Billing address
- – Make sure that the billing address you use for the transaction matches those that your credit card company has. Address matching is however not very likely to be the main cause of a transaction failure.