Tips for shopping on the internet.

Normally, I wouldn’t talk about the nitty-gritty details of my day job in my blog.

However, three things came to mind in the past few days:

1. How do I fill my blog with 30 days worth of NaBloPoMo?  
2. The Christmas shopping season is now upon us.  Yes, it’s true.  
3. Seeing too many people make a couple of common mistakes when ordering online with my employer.

So what are the common mistakes?

• Repeatedly trying to place an order when seeing that a credit or debit card has been declined by an online retailer.  Just because a card is declined does not mean your credit card issuer or your bank hasn’t authorized the funds to be held.  The retailer cannot do anything to release your funds – ultimately, that is up to your bank.  Sometimes it is enough for me to tell a customer that there’s an authorization(s) and the bank will release funds.  Sometimes I have to fill out paperwork with the bank in order for this to happen.  
• The most common reasons for declined transactions are not a daily limit or limited funds.  It is either an AVS mismatch, which means the billing address you entered does not match your statement address, or a card code mismatch, which means the 3- or 4-digit security code on the back of your card has been entered incorrectly.  Again, your bank will hold funds for both of these types of declines.

So what should you do if your transaction isn’t approved by an online retailer?  Call customer service.  They may be able to find out what kind of decline your order is producing.  If it’s a straight decline, call your credit card issuer or bank.  If it’s a decline with authorization, some online retailers can still place a manual order.  It saves everyone (including you!) a lot of time if you just make the call instead of repeatedly trying to place an order online.