Why does my online credit card payment fail? (2024)

Secure online credit card transactions are processed in real-time on behalf of the ISHS by the authorized merchant payment service provider Ingenico (previously Ogone) using the highest levels of security available on the market.

Sometimes online credit card transactions would fail - the reasons for such failure may simply be the use of a wrong card number or the card limit has been reached, etc. In other cases the reasons are less obvious and may relate to the ever increasing fraud prevention and/or other security measures implemented by credit card companies to protect the cardholder against card abuse.

It should be understood that ISHS has no control over such transaction refusal. Your credit card company would even not disclose to ISHS the exact reason for your transaction to fail.

This means that unfortunately ISHS cannot assist in solving the issue which is strictly a matter between the card issuing credit card company (who refused to authorize the transaction) and the credit card holder (who initiated the process to have the amount of the transaction charged to his/her credit card).

In case of a transaction failure, ISHS recommends to first try using an alternative credit card, or to give it another try with the same credit card again but at a later time. In most cases this would solve the issue.

Do carefully check the card details before confirming the transaction for processing. Also ensure your card is actually a credit card and not just a debit card. ISHS accepts all major credit cards.

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 in the ISHS web pages.

Note that ISHS 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.

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 ISHS bank account. Wire transfers 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 ISHS for details or to request an invoice).

A list of 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 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 authorised 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.