It is frustrating when you cannot place an order on our web site with your International Credit Card. The fact that this sometimes occurs does not mean you are a bad risk or anything else bad.
Credit Card fraud is very real in International Orders... there are stolen credit cards, stolen identities... So International Credit Card transactions are far more difficult than with your local purchases.... when you hand the credit card to your local merchant.
When you place an order on our site and use a credit card, our Merchant Gateway (the company that handles our credit card business) contacts the credit card data base in this country, and seeks authorization for your purchase..... and places an Authorization into your credit cards information. This is to make a short-time hold on that much money until the order is shipped. When your order is shipped, our merchant gateway charges your credit card for the order.... and after that occurs we are paid for the order.
Sometimes the Merchant Gateway cannot contact your credit cards data base. Then no authorization for the purchase can be made.... and the order process is declined, and your order cannot be accepted.
Why?
Not all International Credit Cards have been authorized by your bank for international transactions.
Not all international Credit Card data-bases can be accessed by our Merchant Gateway.
Sometimes information about your international Credit Card is missing, such as the Security CVV number.
Sometimes credit card numbers are entered incorrectly... that is easy to do
And some countries have not been authorized for credit card transactions... for various reasons.
So we fully understand your frustration when our web site cannot accept your International Credit Card.... yet, there is no way we can override and make unauthorized charges to your credit card.
The Merchant Gateway is a Tier 100 response processor so 'declined' is all that's returned without any detail to why it wasn't approved. To find out WHY the transaction was not approved, the card holder would have to contact their issuing bank to find out why the transaction was declined.
There are some destinations that we have little shipping experience, so we have declined such countries. Failure to the locations are declined with a response of "REJECTED CONTACT CUST SERV".
Some transactions are also rejected based on the CVV status not matching to what's on file with the issuer.
How to overcome International Credit Card declines.... Call your bank or the company that issued your credit card and ask if your card is authorized for international transactions. Many times your issuing bank can approve your card for international transactions.
Consider alternatives such as PayPal or Western Union..
If you have a PayPal account, generally order placement with us is pretty easy
For Western Union payments...
Since Western Union is not a credit transaction, Western Union almost always works well.
Payment via Western Union to be sent to...
Roy T. Cone815 Chadbury Ln
Seabrook, Texas 77586, USA
phone 281 474-3847
E-mail me the MTCN money transfer control number and the name of the sender to roy-cone@earthlink.net
We are sorry you may have difficulty placing orders with your International Credit Card.
