Why Was My MasterCard Credit Card Declined?
If your Mastercard was declined recently and you don't know why, you should learn what happened and how to fix it as fast as possible. There are several potential reasons your Mastercard was declined. These include Mastercard suspecting your card was stolen, mistakes made during an online transaction, not paying your Mastercard bill, and more.
If your Mastercard was declined recently, you're probably getting a little worried. Well, the faster you can find out the reason for the rejection, the faster you can fix it and get access to your card once more. This article will teach you about the most common reasons for a card being declined.
Not Enough Credit or Money
The first thing to do is check your balance if you have a Mastercard debit card. You might have less money in your account than you thought. If you have a Mastercard credit card, check if your attempted purchase was more than your available credit.
Expired Mastercard
It's also a good idea to check your Mastercard's expiration date. The rejection could be because your card expired and is no longer valid.
Online Transaction Typo
If your Mastercard was rejected for an online transaction, the problem might be due to a typo. If you entered the verification number from the back of your card wrong, or the wrong billing address, your card would not be verifiable, and so it would be rejected. This problem is often caused by autofill entering the wrong information, so it's always a good idea to double-check any auto-filled fields during an online transaction.
Mastercard Suspects Fraud
If you used your Mastercard someplace far away from the places you usually use it, the company might suspect your card has been stolen and is currently being used by the thieves. It will then shut off your card to protect you from losing any more money and keep it shut off until you correct the problem. You should contact Mastercard to clear up the matter. To keep this problem from happening again, make sure you tell Mastercard when you plan to use your card while you're out of town.
Account Issues
If you haven't made your Mastercard payments in a while, the company might shut your card off until you catch up. Your card might also be shut off if you violated any of Mastercard's terms of service as punishment. This could be either temporary or permanent, depending on the nature of the violation. You could have done this accidentally, so you might want to review Mastercard's terms of service to check.
There Was a Hold on Your Mastercard Account
Car rental companies, hotels, and other merchants do not always submit their bills right away. Instead, they wait until you return the car or check out, so they have an accurate final total to submit. Some of these merchants will put a hold on your bank account when you take out the rental or check in to the hotel to keep a certain amount of your money in your account until they submit the final bill as insurance that they get paid. If you recently made such a transaction, a hold might be the reason your card was declined.
Damaged Mastercard
It's always possible that the chip in your card was damaged so that card readers can't read it correctly anymore. If you can't find any other reason for the rejection, this could be the case, and you will have to replace the card.
Contacting Mastercard
You can contact a Mastercard customer service representative by phone or help forum.
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