Why Are Some Transactions Showing “Failed” Status?

Sometimes, experience managers may notice a “failed” status associated with certain transactions for a-thon or auction fundraisers. Find out what could be causing failed transactions here.

Once you’ve finalized your a-thon or auction fundraiser, donors will automatically be charged via Stripe, our credit card processing partner. Sometimes, the charge is unable to be processed. In these cases, a “failed” status will be shown next to the transaction. An error triggers this status returned from the donor’s bank or credit card issuer. 

Common reasons transactions fail 

  • Insufficient funds in the donor’s account balance.
  • The card has expired or becomes inactive at some point after the initial donation or bid was made.
  • The card used has been flagged as fraudulent by Stripe.

You can pinpoint the exact reason an error was returned from the credit card issuer or bank by following the steps below. 

How to view failed payment details

  1. Go to your Experiences in the left menu.
  2. If you have chosen a list view, click on the title of your experience. If you have selected a grid view, click on the experience image.
  3. Click on View Donations*.
  4. Find the payment in “failed” status. You can use the filters at the top of the “status” column to filter the table to display all “failed” status payments.
  5. In the three-dot menu on the right of each row, click View Failed Reason.

The pop-up box you see here will indicate the failure reason returned to us by the credit card issuer or bank upon attempting to charge the donor’s card. 

What to do next

We’ve taken care of contacting the donor for you. Find out more information below.

What Should I Do If a Donor’s Credit Card Fails?

*Note that the terminology on these buttons may be different depending on your experience settings

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