How To Resolve Payment Issues

There are a few easy steps to resolve the most common payment issues.

In This Article

• Why Was My Payment Rejected?
• Common Payment Errors
• What Can I Do To Resolve A Payment Issue?
• What If I See A "3D Secure Verification Failed" Error?
• What Can I Do If My Payment Still Fails After Following Your Steps?
• How Long Do I Have to Fix This?

Why Was My Payment Rejected?

How Our Payments Work

All SmarterQueue subscription payments are handled securely by our payment gateway, PayPal Braintree. The payment gateway will take your credit card details directly from our secure form, and send them to your bank or credit card provider for verification and payment authorization. At SmarterQueue we have no access to your payment details.

For new cards, the payment gateway will attempt to pre-authorize a small charge (between £0 and £1) to check that your bank will approve payments to SmarterQueue. Sometimes these verification amounts may show up on your credit card statement (converted to your own currency – e.g. $1.38), but if they do, they will be removed within 2-3 business days.

If your bank decides to reject the authorization or payment, it will return an error response code and message – we display these directly to you. When this happens, it is your bank that has rejected the transaction, not SmarterQueue.

Where To Find Transaction Error Codes

Payment failures can happen in two places:

• when you go through the checkout to start/change your subscription
• when our payment gateway attempts to renew your monthly/yearly subscription

If your payment fails during checkout, you'll see a message displayed at the bottom of the checkout page, showing the response that your bank returned:

Common Payment Errors

• Insufficient Funds. This means that your credit card has reached its limit, or for prepaid cards, there are not enough funds on the card balance to process the transaction.
• Call Issuer. Pick Up Card. This usually happens when a replacement card should be used instead of the current card.
• Issuer or Cardholder restriction. This error usually occurs because the bank (or the customer) has set rules on what payments are allowed. Sometimes international payments are blocked, which returns this error. Note: SmarterQueue is a UK-registered company, which is what may cause international payments to be blocked if you are outside of the UK.
• Incorrect Postal Code. This can happen even if you’ve successfully made payments to SmarterQueue with that card & postcode. The bank’s first-level support will simply confirm that they approved the payment and that your postcode is stored correctly. However, while the bank did approve your payment, they also sent a “Postal code does not match (N)” response along with the approval. Our fraud-prevention settings will reject any payments that get this response from a bank so you will need to ask your bank’s Level 2 support why they returned the postcode-error response, despite the postcode being entered correctly.
• Other Errors. These can happen for a variety of reasons. Call your bank’s Level 2 support to find out why these payments were rejected.
  • Declined
  • Do Not Honor
  • Processor Declined
  • Transaction Not Allowed

What Can I Do To Resolve A Payment Issue?

To resolve a payment issue, the first thing to do is call your bank or credit card provider.

Request to speak to the Level 2 support. Usually, call centre support agents won’t have access to the information required to resolve a payment issue, and they will simply claim that your card is working fine. Speaking to Level 2 support is essential to find out why your bank rejected your payment.

Explain to your bank or credit card’s support services that you attempted to make a payment to SmarterQueue (which is a UK-registered company), give the date, and tell your bank what error code and message was returned.

Once your bank has confirmed that they declined the payment/authorization and that they’ve resolved the issue (e.g. lifted the restriction, or changed some system settings), try the payment again by completing the checkout process from the SmarterQueue Pricing page.

What If I See A "3D Secure Verification Failed" Error?

What Is 3D Secure Authentication and How Does it Work?

3D Secure is an additional layer of cardholder authentication on online card transactions.

When you make a payment for an online purchase, 3DS technology gauges if further safekeeping is needed to make sure that you are the rightful card owner. If so, you’ll be directed to a 3DS page and asked for a password or PIN, or a different form of payment confirmation.

Simultaneously, your bank generates a one-off PIN and sends it to your phone via SMS (that you'll need to enter before you complete the transaction), or requests that you approve the payment via your Internet banking app.

What If I get a 3D Secure Authentication error?

When completing your SmarterQueue payment, you may see an error displayed referring to the 3D Secure verification. This error could come up either instead of the 3D Secure pop-up or right after you've performed the steps required by it:

Here are a few things that you can do to solve this issue:

• Make sure that you're following the correct steps, as described in the pop-up. If a code is required, double-check that you're entering the right one from the correct source into the pop-up.
• If you are using a pop-up blocker, it might be preventing the bank's 3D Secure authorization pop-up from being shown. Try disabling it while completing the payment, or simply use a different browser or incognito window.
• It could be that the bank decided not to bother asking for a verification code, but then rejected the payment anyway. In this case, you'll need to contact your bank to check in with them and request support in finalizing the payment.

What Can I Do If My Payment Still Fails After Following Your Steps?

If you’re still encountering payment issues after following the steps above, try a different credit or debit card if you are able to.

Alternatively, we recommend you try using Apple Pay! You can find step-by-step instructions on how to use Apple Pay in How To Pay With Apple Pay.

You can also pay via a PayPal account. Instructions on how to pay with PayPal are in How To Pay With PayPal.

If paying via PayPal, be aware that if you’re funding the payment with the same credit card, but connected via PayPal, the credit card provider may still reject the transaction.

If you continue to see errors when attempting to make a payment, please contact us.

How Long Do I Have to Fix This?

We understand how stressful payment issues can be and want to ensure you do not miss a post. We will keep the account active for 7 days before pausing.