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We have an android app that is billed as a monthly recurrent subscription with a 7 days trial. The problem that I am seeing is that at the end of the trial, when the order is processed for billing, more than HALF of the attempts end up in failure due to payment declined. On google-wallet orders I see:

Aug 3 6:52 AM Payment declined The customer's card was declined. Google has sent an email instructing the customer to update their card. If they fail to provide a valid card in a timely manner, this order will be automatically cancelled by Google. Aug 3 6:52 AM Payment declined The authorization to the payment instrument the customer provided failed. The order has been automatically cancelled by Google. Aug 3 6:52 AM Pending You received a new order. Google has sent the customer an order confirmation email.

Does anyone have similar experience? how does the credit check and fraud control work? aren't these orders checked at the beginning of the trial? ~60% of failure seems unbelievably high for credit cards.

user2653825
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    I see similar (poor) conversion via Google Play. One small silver lining is that sometimes the same users will try multiple times and each failure will appear as its own decline in the Wallet/Merchant portal. You can infer that it's the same user because you'll see the same zip code in subsequent failures, a few minutes apart. Other than that there is no actual way to know its the same user failing. The Wallet/Merchant portal is absurdly crappy, given its 2013 and we're talking about an effort by a company the size of Google. It's actually gotten worse as the old portal gave more intel. – sghael Aug 29 '13 at 14:47
  • Upvote, I also face the same issue. So far, 6/14 of the listed transactions have a "cancelled" status and a "Message sent to the customer: Your credit card ending in XXXX was declined. Please select a different payment method.." message in the history. – user1987392 Sep 29 '13 at 18:42
  • I don't think the card is verified until actual purchase. My theory is that users are typing in their long credit card number when they have a new phone (and may not be used to the keyboard yet), because it's one of the first things you do when you set up an Android. Many of these users may have a smart phone for the first time or have switched from a different brand. A lot of room here for a typo to happen. A lot of those are probably the same person making repeated attempts, but 60% seems high. I don't do subscriptions, but I've seen about 20% of my orders have this issue. – Tenfour04 Dec 12 '13 at 16:14
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    One other point to add...most Android users purchase very little from the store, ever. If they are trying to purchase something from you, it is very likely the first purchase they have ever made from Google Play, and so you have the honor of being their first failed order if they initially typed their credit card info wrong. Also, it may have been a few months since they got their phone, so their original card is expired before they ever make a purchase. – Tenfour04 Dec 12 '13 at 16:20
  • The old portal used to have the user's email so you can tell whether it's from the same user. The new portal removed this feature - Google claimed too much privacy exposure of the customer - so it was abruptly removed. Now, there's no way for developers to communicate directly with clients to help them out. – ChuongPham Dec 25 '13 at 14:39
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    I am from India and my experience with google wallet was that it could process credit card but failed for all debit cards except from one particular bank called ICICi Bank. This is more of a google issue as they do not have the capability to process cards from large number of other countries outside USA – bhaskarc Feb 19 '14 at 22:23
  • Same problem except in my case the rejection rate is around 90%. People all around the world buy features in my app,but most purchases from Brazil, Russia, Arab countries and elsewhere will fail due to rejected credit card. For USA, Canada, Australia the success rate is higher, but still a lot of rejection there too. – Wytze Mar 23 '14 at 14:28
  • @tao I have purchased multiple apps from google play. For Indian debit cards VBV (Verified By Visa) is required. To remove this I emailed HDFC bank to remove these restrictions at talktous@hdfcbank.com . If you write to them, they will let you transact on any website across the world. Do that, then life will be a bliss! – Parth Sane Apr 10 '15 at 04:26

2 Answers2

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Google play is committing fraud by faulty transactions and will not listen to any complaints, so I assume there will be a class action lawsuit by developers one day to regain their losses. I had sudden cancellations within seconds of apps being purchased. One buyer was in the same building and told me he got my app for free because his purchase was credited back to him after he downloaded it and he never cancelled. I then tried to purchase my own app. Google play has a tech error and gives apps out for free. You just need to change a last digit or CVC code and you get the app for free because the payment is never cleared until AFTER you download the app.

user4511756
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  • this is really crazy. i wonder if it is still the case today. i have the feeling that some people try this trick still. – Emil Sep 13 '19 at 08:53
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A credit card transaction has two important parts: authorization and settlement.

I am not familiar with the APIs Google provide for payments but if they allow you to control these parts then you can do the authorization at the beginning of the trial period.

When the authorization stage is done the credit card company reserve this amount for you from the clients account but doesn't yet charge it.

After the trial period you can do the settlement and the client will be charged.

If you've already done the authorization then the settlement is much less likely to fail.

These two stages usually exist in order to give the business entity time to check for fraud. If a transaction is cancelled after authorization but before settlement there's little or no fee for the business entity. If the transaction is cancelled after settlement there be a substantial fee charged from the business entity (by the credit card company).

selalerer
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