Reviewing Declined Credit Card Authorizations
In this section, you can search for orders that were rejected because of your Smart Authorization settings, that require a verbal authorization, or both. To search, go to the Order Search tab in the Auths Needing Review section. Select the options that you want, and in the results page, click the request ID of the order that you want to review.
Hiding Authorizations from Search
The Hide from Search feature prevents an authorization from appearing in future searches. Use this feature when you know that you will never capture an authorization, such as when an order is cancelled or fraudulent. You can still use the General Search tool to find this authorization.
You can find this feature on the search results page of the Auths Ready to Capture (highlighted in red in the above figure) and Auths Needing Review sections. From this page, you can hide transactions from search or capture authorizations.
Smart Authorization Declines
Smart Authorization guards against fraud losses by analyzing credit card authorizations to verify that the customer is legitimate. Orders can be rejected because of your Smart Authorization settings, such as when the Address Verification service cannot match the customer’s address (
no address match)
or the card verification is not available (
card verification number was not submitted
). The results are marked for review because they appeared to be risky.
After reviewing the orders carefully, if you determine that they are legitimate, you can capture the authorizations. To help you in reviewing these orders, you may want to contact the customer or take other steps to verify the customer’s identity and the validity of the order. This example shows an order that was declined because it exceeded the amount entered in your Smart Authorization settings. The reason for the failure is stated as
factor code M
.
Verbal Authorization Code Needed
Some orders are rejected when you do not receive as expected in the reply an authorization code from the customer's bank. In some cases, such as when a card’s magnetic strip is demagnetized, or the card is expired or invalid, you need to call to obtain verbally an authorization code. After processing, these transactions are indistinguishable from other credit card transactions. You do not need to call for an authorization code for declines due to Smart Authorization settings because these declines do not originate from the bank.
If you were required to call the card association to obtain the six-digit number, you must enter this code in the Business Center so that the transaction can be processed. Make sure to process a verbal authorization only with the same processor that gave you the verbal authorization. Otherwise, the transaction will fail.
Example
The following example shows an order that was originally declined (Auth Code section empty and framed in red) in the first figure but later captured (settled) after an authorization code obtained verbally was entered in the Capture page (second figure). Because the authorization code was not received initially in the Business Center, the code never appears in the details page, even after the order is captured successfully (third figure).
