Why is a payment order rejected?

Payment refusal is a reality in the world of online sales and can happen for several reasons. A payment may be declined due to:

• an issue with the payment method;
• incorrect data filling on the client side;
• insuficient amount of money on the card used in the transaction;
• breach of any of the necessary security requirements;
• strange movements of the account that may indicate a fraude risk;
• problems in communication between acquirers.

You can find the information and check the status of a payment via the API, through the Get Payment method. The status field indicates whether the payment was approved, while the status_detail field provides more details, including the reasons for rejection.

{
    "status": "rejected",
    "status_detail": "cc_rejected_insufficient_amount",
    "id": 47198050,
    "payment_method_id": "master",
    "payment_type_id": "credit_card",
    ...
}

These rejections are due to errors committed during the checkout process, that may happen for different reasons: trouble understanding the payment screen, problems with the customer's experience, lack of validations in certain fields, or common mistakes made by the client when completing their data, especially their card’s data.

In these cases, the status_detail field may return:

• cc_rejected_bad_filled_card_number
• cc_rejected_bad_filled_date
• cc_rejected_bad_filled_other
• cc_rejected_bad_filled_security_code

When paying with a credit or debit card, the issuing bank may refuse the charge for different reasons, such as the expiration date, insufficient balance or limit, or disabled or blocked card for online payments.

In these cases, the status_detail field may return:

• cc_rejected_call_for_authorize
• cc_rejected_card_disabled
• cc_rejected_duplicated_payment
• cc_rejected_insufficient_amount
• cc_rejected_invalid_installments
• cc_rejected_max_attempts

We monitor transactions in real time in order to recognize suspicious features and patterns that may indicate a fraude attempt. This is made both by the Mercado Pago algorithm and the banks, in an attempt to reduce chargebacks to a minimum.

When our fraud prevention system detects a suspicious payment, the API’s response in the status_detail field may return:

• cc_rejected_blacklist
• cc_rejected_high_risk
• cc_rejected_other_reason

 {
    "status": "rejected",
    "status_detail": "cc_rejected_high_risk",
    "id": 47198050,
    "payment_method_id": "master",
    "payment_type_id": "credit_card",
    ...
}