Mechant Account Hell -- Have a Merchant Account? Please Help Me!!!!

That's terrible. I hope it gets cleared up.
I haven't had that experience, but I would explain what you just said to the customer (be very courteous and understanding) and if they are still upset, contact Authorize.net via email about the problem. If their reply is sufficient, forward it to the disgruntled customer.
If Authorize.net doesn't clear up the problem with in a couple days (if even that long), I would just apologize profusely and refund the customer's money. Offer them something free as well. Make it 100% clear that you were not trying to rip them off.

It's better to lose that money than have that customer bad mouthing you all over the place because he thinks you scammed him.

Thanks...

But this happens several times a DAY.

Any other merchant account owners out there that suffer from this headache?

SOMEONE is doing something WRONG! First of all, if it doesn't go through, it will NOT show up as an actual charge!!!!!! SOME online systems DO show an auth as a pending.

1. If they mistype their CC number, the polite and proper thing is to TELL them, and NOT run the credit card. It is a relatively little known fact that the last digit is a CHECK DIGIT! That means that, though you can't know what the right CC # is, you CAN determine that the number IS wrong!

2. You apparently have an auth/capture system. It is a GOOD thing too, because you would otherwise be taking money from them by ALL measures! THIS means that if you, for some reason, DON'T accept the charge, you should VOID it! If you CAPTURE it, it IS taking their money. If you do NOTHING, the money will be held for a while.

One more thing, some systems allow double charges. THAT is why many today disable the button after it is hit and/or say something like "This could take several minutes, PLEASE don't hit the button more than once."!

Steve

SOMEONE is doing something WRONG! First of all, if it doesn't go through, it will NOT show up as an actual charge!!!!!! SOME online systems DO show an auth as a pending.

Yes -- its never a REAL charge, but a pending charge, and it causes people to freak out.

1. If they mistype their CC number, the polite and proper thing is to TELL them, and NOT run the credit card. It is a relatively little known fact that the last digit is a CHECK DIGIT! That means that, though you can't know what the right CC # is, you CAN determine that the number IS wrong!

I am not sure what you mean by this. This is all automated, online. I am not running any CC's manually. THey are mistyping, and then typing correctly, creating two pending transactions: one that processes completely in a few days, and one that disappears.

2. You apparently have an auth/capture system. It is a GOOD thing too, because you would otherwise be taking money from them by ALL measures! THIS means that if you, for some reason, DON'T accept the charge, you should VOID it! If you CAPTURE it, it IS taking their money. If you do NOTHING, the money will be held for a while.

One more thing, some systems allow double charges. THAT is why many today disable the button after it is hit and/or say something like "This could take several minutes, PLEASE don't hit the button more than once."!

Steve

Is there anyone else who has a hard time with this?

Back when I was struggling with money, I was on the customer end of this. The second authorization has taken my food money or even the money I needed for electricity before. I actually had my electricity shut off for over a week until the second authorization dropped off once because this happened to me. Most of the time the merchant will cooperate and work with the bank to get that authorization released, but sometimes they won't. Then it can take days to drop off if the merchant won't jump through your bank's hoops to get it released.

I don't know what causes it, but it only happens with certain merchants. It's happened to me on recurring transactions, too. So it's not a mistake on my end.

It's happened multiple times with certain merchants. For some reason, some systems are set up to do this now and then. Have you asked Authorize.net about it?

Yeah I have asked them and they say it happens with every transaction where the stuff is mistyped.

Yeah I feel bad about it because my customers are really tight on money.

I hear its more on the bank's side of things.

I will ask Authorize.net again tmw.

Thanks for your feedback

Yeah thanks man. Yeah I get curious how big boys do it for $1997 products...

I've had a merchant account for about 10 years, and I've never had that problem. That doesn't help you, but at least you know it isn't happening to everyone. On the bright side, you said it happens every day, so at least you're getting sales every day.

Simple solution:

A big, bold warning on the order page stating what you've outlined here.

"Please ensure all fields are properly filled out. You will not be billed for purchases containing the wrong information, but those funds will be held for 72 hours. The banks do this, not us. Thanks, -Name"

Hi guys

the same sort of thing can actually happen with paypal too - if say you are on a subscription payment the sellers account is banned from making charges and is limited. They are informed that they are not allowed to take payments paypal will charge them anyway then refund it a couple of days later.

kind regards


sam
X

Well, this could never happen if they typed in the wrong credit card number, so don't even worry about that.
You might want to try lowering you address verification security. See: http://www.authorize.net/support/mer...y_Settings.htm

Or you could fix your script that does the authorization. When an address fails, you only need to to a CAPTURE transaction to complete it. It seems that your script is redoing the entire transaction and not voiding the original authorization.

To answer how the big guys do it is this. They create a customer record on there database. When the customer enters there credit card and AVS (address cerification System) information they authorize $1 (1 dollar). If the AVS matches they aurthorize the full amount. If it does not they ask for it again and again try $1 until it does.

One other note. We have several merchant accounts with every major player. Cybersource owns Authorzie.net but has a neat feature that you maybe able to get. It is a "decline" on certain AVS return instead of a "authorize" . Say the AVS returns a "N" for no match instead of "authoring" the amount it does not and returns a "decline" instead.