Card being refused but not declined, cannot complete payment.

[Billcat123]

Ohio, USA. I recently purchased a prepaid Vanilla Visa card, as I have done many times before, with the intent to purchase some things online. One of the retailers I was checking out from only allows you to use PayPal to check out, so I added my new card to my account and attempted to continue. I then received this exact message
"Check your account at your card issuer before retrying this card"

I thought maybe something was wrong with my card, so I went to the vanilla visa website and looked at it. The card is active, it has ample funds, and everything else I would need/have needed in the past (as recent;y as 2 days ago with another prepaid vanilla visa) in order for this purchase to go through. However, I simply keep receiving this message for no apparent reason. 

[sharpiemarker]

@Billcat123 

Did you make sure name and billing address match what's on your PayPal account? Are you trying to buy a subscription or do a recurring payment? Prepaid cards won't work for that purpose.

[Billcat123]

The card itself does not ask for a name, simply a zip code and billing address. However, these both match. I am not attempting to purchase any sort of recurring payment or subscription (I'm purchasing a game script for a game server I am creating, to be specific.)

[PayPal_Schae]

@sharpiemarker, @Billcat123

Thanks for your question, and @sharpiemarker for getting the ball rolling on this topic! 

If the above suggestions didn't solve the issue, you can call your prepaid card company to identify the problem. To protect your privacy, the card issuer doesn't always tell PayPal why your card was declined. If you can still use the card, please try your transaction again at a later time.

Sometimes payments will be declined due to a security check. If that is the case, then you will want to give PayPal Customer Service a call to look into the issue. Here are the steps to contact us:

- Visit our PayPal website.

- Click on the word "Contact" at the bottom of the page.

- Click on "Call us", then login or continue as a guest. 

- Select the phone number you'd like to use and dial it. 

I hope this information helps, thank you!

-Schae