Why did my customer's payment fail?
Most failed payments are the customer's bank declining the card, a 3-D Secure check that wasn't completed, or an expired checkout. Here's what each means and what to try.
Most failed payments come down to one of three things: the customer’s bank declined the card, a 3-D Secure check wasn’t completed, or the checkout expired before payment finished. The failure reason shown on the payment tells you which, and each has a different next step.
The common causes
- The bank declined the card. Some declines are permanent for that card — for example the bank returned “Do Not Honour” or flagged the transaction as risky. The customer should use a different card; retrying the same one will decline again.
- Not enough funds. This is temporary. The customer can try again once funds are available, or use another card.
- 3-D Secure wasn’t completed. If the payment shows “Card authentication failed (3-D Secure)”, the customer didn’t finish the bank’s verification step. Ask them to try again and complete the check from their banking app. See Why was my payment declined by 3-D Secure?
- The checkout expired. A payment page left open too long times out. Send a fresh payment link.
What to tell your customer
Card declines are decided by the customer’s bank, not by Fynex — we can’t override them. The quickest fixes are: try a different card, complete the 3-D Secure prompt, or contact their bank if it keeps declining a card they know is good.
For a full list of what each failure reason means, see A payment says “failed” — what do the error codes mean?