Article: 50102
Overview
Credit card transactions can fail for various reasons. When a card is declined, our system provides a specific decline code that helps identify the reason. Understanding these codes can help you or your customers resolve the issue more quickly.
Repeated payment attempts may cause repeated transactions to show on your account; however, these are holds, not complete transactions. You will not be double charged for filing your return in 1040.com.
Decline Codes – General Information
In general, each transaction code is formatted as “[X].I00001”, with the [X] indicating a number, beginning with 1-4, that reflects the result of the transaction. “1”, by itself, indicates a successful transaction.
This means that card decline codes fall into 4 broad categories, as provided below:
- Approved transaction.
- These transactions have been approved, and no further action is needed. You likely will not see this code, as it will happen in the background.
- Declined transactions.
- o These transactions have declined, and the numbers that follow the 2 provide further information regarding the specifics of the transaction, and what needs to be done differently to have the transaction approved.
- Errors.
- These transactions have specific errors that have prevented processing, and the numbers that follow the 3 specify what the errors are.
- Action Required.
- These transactions require a specific action to be approved. They’re not declined, rejected, or accepted – they’re being held until action is taken. This is most commonly received in cases where your bank has fraudulent transaction concerns and wants you to confirm your ID.
The Two Codes We Most Commonly Encounter
2.I00001 – General Decline
- This is the most common decline code and indicates that the card-issuing bank declined the transaction for some unknown reason to us or our payment processor.
- You will need to contact the institution that provided your card to request further information – you may also need to request that they specifically allow/whitelist transactions from our site.
- If you cannot get the card to process, then you would need to use a different card or payment method.
The likeliest reason for receiving a card decline after your bank has cleared the transaction (and while we are still receiving the same decline code) is failing a security check. The most common of these to fail is not having an *exact* match between the billing address on your card’s account, and your address on our Name and Address screen. This would reflect as a rejection from the other party on both ends, due to data disagreement from both sides.
We recommend finding your most recent card statement and matching your address on your account exactly to what is listed on that statement – or updating your card address to be an exact match to your entry in our software. This can be as particular as making sure you are entering “Street” on both, and not “Street” on one, and “St” on the other.
3.E00027 – Address Mismatch
- This is the second most common decline code – it indicates that your address on the Name and Address screen on our site doesn’t match the billing address on your credit/debit card.
- As stated above, these need to be *exact* matches.
- We recommend finding your most recent card statement and matching your address on your account *exactly* to what is listed on that statement – or updating your card address to be an exact match to your entry in our software. This can be as particular as making sure you are entering “Street” on both, and not “Street” on one, and “St” on the other.