US Banks declining cards

[a1anm]

We get quite a lot of attempted transactions from the US. The problem is that about 80% of the time the bank declines the transaction.

I realise that some of the time the customer may have no money in their account etc but so many of them get declined and even when they pass 3d secure. Quite a few times the customer will contact us to say there is no reason the card would be declined. We then suggest they try PayPal which they often do.

However, many times they don't contact us so we lose the sale. We primarily sell watches and the transactions are usually between £100 and £300. I'm assuming the banks think it may be fraud so decline it.

Is there any way to prevent this? Or minimise the chances if it happening?

I thought about making all American visitors use PayPal pro instead of our regular SagePay/Merchant account checkout but we use Magento and it doesn't seem to be possible to enable PayPal for certain stores (this can only be enabled at the website level).

 

[deadgoodundies]

When we've seen this (as we see it a lot) it's because the customers card issuer has a international payment block on the cards as a security measure.
The card issuer don't seem to tell their customers that this is in place so unless the customer calls their card issuer to remove the block then it will keep getting declined.

Only way we've found to combat it is that on the payment fail page we put a small explanation of the above, either that or I will call the customer in the USA to explain.

 

[a1anm]

When we've seen this (as we see it a lot) it's because the customers card issuer has a international payment block on the cards as a security measure.
The card issuer don't seem to tell their customers that this is in place so unless the customer calls their card issuer to remove the block then it will keep getting declined.

Only way we've found to combat it is that on the payment fail page we put a small explanation of the above, either that or I will call the customer in the USA to explain.

I thought this was probably the case. When customers contact us I mention that they could phone their bank and get any blocks removed. I am trying to figure out how to add a custom error messages with the ebizmarts SagePay extension in Magento but haven't found a way yet.

 

[deadgoodundies]

If you find a way to add that custom message then please post it as we will be moving over to magento shortly as well.

 

[a1anm]

If you find a way to add that custom message then please post it as we will be moving over to magento shortly as well.

Will do. I think one of the SagePay extension javascript files need modified. Just not sure which one.

 

[John Forbes Nash]

or add a green phone number or like a live chat directly on the website etc..

 

[a1anm]

If you find a way to add that custom message then please post it as we will be moving over to magento shortly as well.

I figured out how to customise these error codes by editing the sagePaySuite_Checkout.js file.

If you switch to Magento and need a hand with this let me know and I can send you my updated file.

 

[Bill1954]

Have you specified the USA as a legitimate shipping location in Magento ? If not Magento will reject the transaction as it can't add shipping charges

 

[a1anm]

Yes, the settings allow for the transactions.

Sometimes they go through without a problem. It just seems quite a lot of the orders from the US get declined by the bank.