Why was my sale declined?

1. Most often sales are declined because the billing portion of your order does not match the information on file for your credit card. You can ship to any address you wish, but on the billing information side of the check out screen, your name, address, etc has to match exactly the information on your card statement. For example, many businesses receive card statements at a PO Box. If this is not entered in the billing information, the sales will be declined.

2. Our site requires the security code to be entered from the back of your card, or as in AMEX, the front. This is the 3 or 4 digit code you see on the card. If this is not entered correctly, the sale will not go through.

3. Our site has 8 layer security like a MAC machine. If you try a card more than 3 times, it will automatically be rejected as the processor thinks it is a fraudulent transaction.

What happens when my sale is declined?

1. Please note if a sale is declined we do not have your funds and we can not collect them. Please read the explanation of an authorization hold below before you do anything else.

2. Remember, our staff has nothing to do with declining a card. It is solely controlled by our merchant software that checks and reviews the information against the file for that card and determines whether it meets the criteria to process. We are an online shopping cart. If you call us, we have to do the same entry on the website that you have done, so we would get the same results if something does not match.

3. If your sale is declined, call your issuing card bank. Ask them to review the billing information with you to prevent this from happening again. Also ask them to remove all holds as we can not process anything once a sale has failed on our end. If they need documentation from us, please get a contact person and email or fax number, and we would be happy to provide the documentation that the sale failed and we can not collect on it or process it.

Please read the following carefully:

Authorization hold (also card authorization, pre-authorization, or preauth) is the practice within the banking industry of authorizing electronic transactions done with a debit card or credit card and holding this balance as unavailable either until the merchant clears the transaction (also called settlement), or the hold "falls off." In the case of debit cards, authorization holds can fall off the account (thus rendering the balance available again) anywhere from 1-5 days after the transaction date depending on the bank's policy; in the case of credit cards, holds may last as long as 30 days, depending on the issuing bank. Visa allows merchants to void an authorization hold immediately or adjust the amount of the hold in a process known as an authorization reversal; other card associations require customers to wait until the customer's bank invalidates the hold.

Credit and debit card transactions are a two-step process, consisting of an authorization and a settlement.

When a customer orders with a credit or debit card, the online processor connects to the merchant's acquirer, or credit card processor, which verifies that the customer's account is valid and that sufficient funds are available to cover the transaction's cost. At this step, the funds are "held" and deducted from the customer's credit limit (or bank balance, in the case of a debit card) but are not yet transferred to the merchant. At the end of the day, the merchant instructs the credit card processor to submit the finalized transactions to the acquirer in a "batch transfer," which begins the settlement process, where the funds are transferred from the customer's accounts to the merchant's accounts. Contrary to popular belief, this process is not instantaneous: the transaction may not appear on the customer's statement or online account activity for one to two days, and it can take up to three days for funds to be deposited in the merchant's account.

For example, if an individual has a credit limit of $100 and uses a credit card to make a purchase at a retail store for $30, then his available balance will immediately decrease to $70. This is because the merchant has obtained an authorization from the individual's bank by swiping the card through its credit card terminal. However, the actual balance with the bank is still $100, because the merchant has not actually collected the funds in question. The actual balance will not be reduced until the merchant submits their batch of transactions and the banking system transfers the funds.

Confusion in online banking

When viewing an online banking website, authorization holds often appear in the "pending transactions" section of the balance sheet. As stated above, authorization holds only last for a fixed maximum period of time. So, if an individual made the $30 purchase listed above, and their bank only kept that authorization hold in place for 1 business day, then the individual would see the funds as a pending transaction for that first day. If the merchant failed to present the item for payment within that first day, the authorization hold would "fall off" and the funds would appear to be available again. If the merchant then presented the item for payment 2 days later, the $30 transaction would "reappear" and actually be debited from the account at that time. This causes some issues with overdraft fees, as customers who rely solely on the online (or ATM) balance may not be taking into account transactions for which the authorization hold has fallen off. This creates a false impression of the balance, and can cause the customer to spend more than they actually have in the account.

If you have any other questions, please e-mail or fax us:

sales@hotelsupplies-online.com or fax 775-855-9533