declined credit card reasons

Anna Frankel

Hi - I keep getting a declined credit card reason of Please Call The Number On The Back Of Your Card. Your Bank. Does anyone have any info on this and what do I need to do to resolve other than call the donor for a new card?

Julie VanErsvelde

@Anna Frankel What I have figured out is that this means there was some sort of fraud on that card and the donor was probably issued a new card. All I have found to do is call the donor and get new card information.

Anna Frankel

@Julie VanErsvelde thank you for responding!! The donors for these cards do not seem to respond to my email or phone calls… interesting. I appreciate your input.

JoAnn Strommen

@Anna Frankel Generally, as Julie said, they've had fraud. I have run into couple cases where issuer/bank had very tight security for allowed processing and donor had to ask them to permit charge.

I've reached out to donor and explained message, apologized for any inconvenience but the issue is to ensure the security on their card.

Faith Murray

@Anna Frankel, if a monthly donor's card has lapsed and does not respond to phone or email, I will then check the “send reminders” button in their gift and add them to our monthly pledge reminder mailing. I usually tweak the reminder, or add a personal note, to customize it to say that their card on file did not process, and “we understand that life circumstances sometimes change, so please let me know if you would like to adjust your gift or hold it for a couple of months”. Donors usually respond well if you are less transactional, although there will always be a few who just drop off. The ones who drop off, just add them back into your prospect pool for future recurring gift appeals.

Anna Frankel

@Faith Murray are you using NXT to sent the messages? we are tiptoeing into acknowledgments but I didnt realise that we can send pledge reminder messages - this could be life changing as I spend hours with follow up.

Anna Frankel

@JoAnn Strommen thank you for your help!!

Dariel Dixon

@Anna Frankel:
Does anyone have any info on this and what do I need to do to resolve other than call the donor for a new card?

I'm curious about this part. Is there a hesitancy to contact the donor? It seems like this is the easiest and most straightforward resolution. When I've had to contact a donor about these issues, they were generally aware and we were able to resolve it quickly. Most times, like @JoAnn Strommen mentioned it's usually an issue with fraud. However, getting them to respond can sometimes take an act of Congress, or so it seems.

I remember one time we had a donor who I contacted about this situation. I sent him several email messages and left a number of voicemails. He finally got back to me 5 months later randomly. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't think its a good idea to call and ask for a new card from the beginning. I think coming in from an informational side is gentler and easier. Letting the donor know there was an issue with the payment, and letting them take it from there. They'll already know, but may have forgotten to let your organization know that the card needs to be updated.

Faith Murray

@Anna Frankel, no our pledge reminders are sent by snail mail - so we use database view for those. I think that is a better bet for you anyhow in the event that they are not responding to calls & emails. I have not tried editing a recurring gift in webview, as all of ours are processed in database view, and I'm not seeing the “send reminders” button available in webview yet. So for now, it might have to be a database view agenda item.