Declines can happen for a variety of reasons. When we submit a charge to your customer’s bank, they have automated systems that determine whether or not to accept the charge. These systems take various signals into account, such as your customer’s spending habits, account balance, and card information like the expiration date and CVC.

Since these signals are constantly changing, a previously successful card might be declined in the future. Even if all of the card information is correct, and your customer previously had a successful payment, a future charge can still be declined by a bank’s overzealous fraud systems.

Stripe will show as much information as possible from your customer’s bank about a decline in your dashboard. Unfortunately, most declines are generic, so we don’t have much specific information as to why a charge was declined.

If all of the card information seems correct, it is best to have your customer contact his or her bank, inquire for more information, and ask for future charges to be accepted.

The correctness of the card number, the expiration data, and the CVC are the primary factors used by the customer’s bank when deciding whether or not to accept a transaction.

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Keywords: declined, credit cards, declining, charges, failed payments, Stripe
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