How do I find the rules used to pre-authorize credit cards?
It's part of your business model. Free trials and other incentives are offered to encourage new customers to subscribe to your services. As part of the process, free-trial'ers must be pre-authorized by providing their credit card information to give your services a try.
But what happens when pre-authorization fails? What are the payment gateway checks and validations used during pre-authorization process?
Solution
Your payment gateway provider defines the fraud prevention policies that validates credit card information during the credit card authorization process. These validations can vary among gateway providers. Common validations can include address verification, expiration dates, to name just a few. The following are key points that can assist with pre-authorization:
Payment Gateways Validate Payment Method Data
Zuora relies almost exclusively on the payment gateway to validate the payment method data, with the following exceptions:
- Zuora validates if the expiration date on the credit card payment method type is in the past. If you want to disable this validation, navigate to Settings > Payments > Define Payment Rules, and disable the Validate credit card expiration date setting.
- Zuora Payment Pages 2.0 provide greater validation options.
- Other payment methods have standard field length restrictions.
Nonempty Payment Methods Fields are Passed to the Gateway for Validation
Zuora passes all nonempty payment method fields to the gateway for validation, including the method's billing address, IP address, and so on.
Contact your payment gateway provider or check their website. They should be able to provide you with their fraud prevention policies.
Gateway Option Fields can be Passed for Additional Fraud Checking
Zuora can pass in additional fields, called Gateway Options, to a gateway. These fields enable you to pass additional data for fraud checking or other gateway-specific functions.
See How do I control how Zuora authorizes payment methods? for additional information.