Attempted to subscribe to one of our sites, only to have your credit card transaction declined?
The most common reasons behind a declined transaction are:
- User input errors - a missing number, typo, incorrectly-entered piece of information. Please doublecheck the information you're submitting for errors and try again as this will usually fix the problem.
- Attempting to use a card we do not accept and that is not part of our network (for instance, we do not accept American Express).
- Attempting to subscribe from a country that is blocked by our payment processors. While we understand this can be tremendously frustrating for users who are genuinely interested in our sites, unfortunately a number of countries and deemed high-risk by our payment processors and so they do not accept transactions from them. There's little we can do about this, as it's up to the payment processor what countries and regions they block. Attempting to bypass these restrictions with VPNs seldom work, as well, because ultimately the card is associated with the country in some way (by billing address or issuing bank, for instance).
- Banks declining the attempted transaction because of suspected fraud. Sometimes, attempted transactions that are genuine still trigger the processors' or your own bank's anti-fraud controls - you're traveling, so attempting a transaction from outside your home country and this looks suspicious to your bank; you're using a VPN, so the IP address you're trying to join from doesn't match your card issuer country or billing address; you've recently reported fraudulent activity on your accounts, so financial institutions are being extra careful reviewing new transactions; you're using a VPN and your location data changes often, or transaction history includes IP addresses from an unusually high number of places.
- An individual user being flagged as high-risk. Perhaps you've charged back transactions in the past. Our payment processors might be unwilling to risk accepting future transactions from a user who's charged back in the past, and there's little we can do about this.
You should receive a message detailing why your attempted transaction was declined when trying to subscribe, as well as an e-mail from the processor with information. While, in many cases, we're not able to do much (especially if it was because you're in a blocked country or subject to some restriction entirely outside of our control) we can often help ensure you're entering information correctly or are able to utilize our alternate and backup payment processors.