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Why was I charged when my order didn't go through?

Understanding AVS Errors/Declines

Sometimes customers ask us "Why was my credit card billed?" when the transaction never went through on bluebrainboost.com. 

In this scenario, the answer is that your card was not billed. Instead, an authorization has been placed on the card (which if you use a debit card may appear as a “charge” since it temporarily lowers your available spending limit).

This situation only comes into play because we've enabled AVS (Address Verification System) or CVV (3 digits on back of card) rules to help protect against fraudulent transactions. This protects both us and the customer from fraud. 

What has occurred here, is that the processing bank sent the request to charge your card, and initially an authorization was approved, but, secondarily, the AVS or CVV rule failed, so the payment gateway declined the transaction.

While this can create confusion, the process is in place to protect both of us. 

In short:

The pending transaction you're seeing is only an authorization, and will automatically fall off of the card shortly. 

Alternate Payment Methods

In addition to credit cards, we also accept payment via Paypal and bitcoin. (To get started with bitcoin, register an account with Coinbase here.) 

To pay with Paypal, select the Paypal option on our checkout page (see screenshot). 

A More Detailed Explanation of AVS/CVV Declines

  1. When a transaction is sent to the bank, it first “authorizes” the card for the amount requested (to verify if it is a valid card number and the requested amount is available). The AUTHORIZATION is approved, regardless of what the AVS/CVV response from the bank is.
  2. Secondly, the AVS/CVV response is sent back to the gateway along w/ the authorization.
  3. There is a difference between an “authorization” and a “capture”, normally the gateway will authorize & capture at the same time. However, since our gateway is set to DECLINE transactions that don’t match AVS or CVV, then the gateway will not capture the authorization if the AVS or CVV response that is received secondarily is NO MATCH. So, if the CVV or AVS fails after the authorization, you will see the “authorization” on their card, and we will see a “Declined” transaction in your gateway reports.
  4. Authorizations reserve (ear-mark) the funds for the merchant for 7-10 business days. For example, when you check into a hotel on Friday night, the hotel authorizes funds on your card, but doesn’t capture them until you check out (that’s why hotels have signs at the front-desk that state “Do Not Use Your DEBIT Card for Check-In”). What you're seeing on your online statement is a “pending charge” (i.e., authorization), that will automatically fall off of their account in due time (5-10 business days depending on the card issuing bank), but it was never captured because the gateway does not accept transactions that don’t meet your AVS or CVV rules. We use AVS & CVV to help protect against fraud & chargebacks, and that the AVS/CVV response is unfortunately not known until AFTER the authorization is processed.
  5. There is no “refund” or “chargeback” that can occur on an authorization like this. Further, there is “no” transaction to reverse since the transaction was rejected for no AVS/CVV match. Some card issuing banks (Capital One, HSBC etc) may let us CANCEL a pending authorization, but we must call into the card issuing bank with the customer on the line to do this (since the authorization is to protect merchants, the banks won’t let customers cancel the authorization without confirming with the merchant); we can’t guarantee they will cancel the authorization though, and there is no way to cancel an authorization on your end. 

If the response at the gateway states that the address does not match, that is the specific AVS response that the card issuing bank reported. 

The payment gateway does not “create” these AVS responses; the gateway simply sends the address to the card issuing bank, and the card issuing bank responds if it matches or not. The gateway has no control over the AVS response from the card issuing bank; the customer will need to call their bank to verify the address on file.