When a card is declined, the decision is made by your bank and not by us. We are told only that it failed, usually without a reason, which is why we cannot tell you exactly what went wrong.
These are the causes, roughly in order of how often they turn out to be the answer.
Your bank blocked a foreign or online merchant
Common with cards that are normally used in person, and with travel purchases in particular. Your bank's app often shows the blocked attempt and lets you approve it in one tap.
The verification step did not complete
Many cards require an extra approval in your banking app. If you missed it or it timed out, the payment fails even though the card is fine. See "The bank verification step failed".
Prepaid or gift cards
Many prepaid cards do not allow online or recurring merchants at all.
Details that do not match
An expired card, a mistyped number, or a billing address that does not match what your bank has on file.
Not enough available balance
Including the case where the money is there but a pending transaction is holding part of it.
What to try
- Check your banking app for a blocked payment to approve.
- Try the same card again once, in case the failure was transient.
- Try a different card.
- Pay from your wallet or with crypto instead, neither of which involves your bank. See "What the SimFuse wallet is, and paying with it" and "How paying with crypto works".
If it still fails, contact us with the time of the attempt and the last four digits of the card. We can see our side of the attempt and tell you what the processor reported.