1. Home
  2. Using the Store
  3. Order Problem – Common Issues
Searching...

Order Problem – Common Issues

Contents

This article is intended to provide a few things to check out after an attempt to pay for an order has failed

Credit/Debit Cards

Prepaid Cards

PayPal

PayPal Express

(see also PayPal issues below)

Credit/Debit Card Problems [Stripe]

Credit/Debit card form fails to load

This seems to happen when your browser is set to “Block third-party cookies”. To resolve this you can:

  • Change your settings to allow [*.]stripe.com to always use cookies.
  • Change your settings to “Allow all cookies” just while you place the order.
  • Try making payment via Paypal or bank transfer instead.

Start Date required but not printed on credit/debit card

This seems to be reported most with US bank debit cards where the form requires you to fill out all the fields (including a start date) even though your card does not have this information printed on it.

Cause:
This is usually caused by the validation tables used by card processors being out of date and incorrectly identifying a debit card as a credit card or vice versa.

Solutions:
– Try changing the card type to the alternative (debit or credit) card type for your provider (eg: Visa Credit if you have already tried Visa Debit) and resubmitting
– Contact us with date/time of your order attempt and we’ll pass the information on to Stripe to update their database

Payment Rejected

Payments are often rejected for obvious reasons (ie: incorrect information entered, typo when putting in numbers, etc…) so it’s always worth double checking and trying your payment again.

The most common cause of a rejection is forgetting to input the last 3 (or 4) digits of the CV2 security number on the back of the card.

However there are other causes which include:

  • Your order had a Billing address that is different from the one your card is registered to
  • Shipping address and Billing address details are for different countries
  • Your bank (card issuer) has an automatic block/reject-transaction placed on your card for International transactions
  • Insufficient credit
  • Multiple failed attempts to use a card

Recommended Action(s):

  • Double check all settings and information provided
  • Check with your credit/debit card issuer to see if there’s any blocks, credit or similar issues
  • Contact us (with details of your attempted payment) so we can check the transaction log and identify any likely causes

Payment Presented Twice

This usually happens when a card has been rejected due to a block on International payments, the customer talks to the bank, has the block removed and then tries to make payment again.

Solution:
Return to the “view cart” page and then work through the checkout process again. This will create a new transaction reference (the old one causes the problem) and should allow payment to be processed successfully (unless, of course, there’s some other problem with payment).

Pre-paid Cards (Amex, Visa, Mastercard, etc…)

Specific Info/Tips

Pre-paid cards come in various types and guises such as gift cards, top-up cards or similar but are treated with the same requirements as other credit/debit cards.

It is important to, either:

  1. Ensure a card is registered with appropriate address details so they can be associated with the card.
    …OR…
  2. Obtain the appropriate billing address information from the provider and use it when placing the order.

This information ensures the card passes the necessary address verification checks that are carried out to validate any transaction.

PayPal

Payment required in GBP (Pounds), EUR (Euros), US, Canadian or Australian Dollars (USD,CAD,AUD)

This is a limitation of the cart software and at present very much by design. You can only pay in any of the other viewable currencies if you choose the “Credit/Debit Card” payment option and pay via Stripe.

Shipping Address different from PayPal stored details

As with Stripe, PayPal can fail transactions where the shipping and/or billing address differ significantly from the details registered with PayPal. To resolve, make sure you keep your PayPal and order details as closely matched as possible.

Kenya (and some other countries) Payment not accepted/processed

Some countries are not allowed by Paypal to make payments. Kenya in particular generates a lot of interest but is one of the affected countries. At present the only option is to purchase a visa pre-payment card or similar and use that with the “Credit/Debit Card” payment option (instead of PayPal)

Checkout will not accept your PayPal email address

The store will ensure the email address format is valid but it will also check for a valid email address so it will not accept expired domains or emails without valid MX records. Update your PayPal profile to use an active email address to continue.

PayPal indicates a problem with the merchant and repeatedly loops back to our site

When you click “Proceed to payment” PayPal won’t let you login but instead indicates that there is an error and to return to the merchants page.
To resolve this you need to hard refresh the checkout page and force your web browser to reload all the files it needs to process your order and communicate properly with PayPal. To do this make sure you are on the checkout page and then choose the method below appropriate for your computers operating system.

  • (Windows) Press and hold the “CTRL” key on your keyboard and then press the “F5” key, then release both keys.
  • (MacOS) Press and hold both the CMD and Shift keys, then press the “R” key before releasing all keys.

This will reload all the JavaScript files and should allow you to checkout cleanly. If you’re still having problems, please contact us for help.

PayPal Express takes [you] to the PayPal site twice? Are [you] paying twice?

The PayPal Express process requires two visits to the PayPal site to complete an order payment.
1. To authenticate and request the customers address details (so you can choose the shipping service)
2. To confirm the order details WITH the shipping cost included

Frustratingly the first visit provides the sub-total without shipping costs included which tends to confuse customers and implies that payment is being taken immediately or even twice.

For clarification, payment is only ever taken once, after the second visit, once all the address, shipping service and confirmation have been received.

PayPal Express [UK] address missing County information

PayPal addresses should include all required information, including a phone number, town, and also the billing/shipping address county (eg: South Yorkshire). If you are in the UK and your PayPal account does not have the county information included in your address information you will need to visit PayPal to update it before completing the transaction.

Stuck at “Logging in” message

If you have more than one type of Two-Factor authentication active on your account, you can find yourself completing the login form but finding that the process does not progress past the “Logging in” message.

The solution for this is visit paypal.com directly, login as normal (it shouldn’t error out) and then deactivate all but one of you “Security key” devices then try making payment again.

Other

If none of the other suggestions above fits or you’ve come across something completely new that isn’t covered then please contact us as soon as possible with details of your order, including:

  • Date/Time
  • Error messages recieved (screenshots of these are particularly helpful)
  • Payment method attempted
  • Basket contents
  • Currency
  • … anything else that you think might be relevant (the more information provided the better)
Updated on 20 June 2023
Tagged:

Was this article helpful?

Yes No

Related Articles

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.