Error code #2 on debit swipes, seeking advice

nummsk — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:58:17 GMT

Hello,

My company is having an issue processing debit card swipe transactions as credit. We are recieving an error code #2 when sending the request, and we have spent the past few weeks exhausing all forms of support from both authorize.net, the point of sale vendor and our merchant bank. No one can find anything wrong.

Some background, we use a third party point of sale which has existing customers using authorize.net to process credit transactions, and none of the other customers are experiencing similar problems to us. The point of sale uses AIM as a card present integration. We are experiencing the same problem on all three of our terminals, so we can rull out hardware issues. Over the past 3 weeks I have gained initmate knowledge of how the POS integration works as I have reviewed the transactions strings and even the code, so I can answer any questions on how that works if needed.

We are using Bank of America as the merchant bank, we have had a little trouble communicating with them, they have sent us in various directions to seek help, none of which have been fruitful.

Now, the problem; as I mentioned before, all debit cards, when swiped, come back as an error code #2 declined. After the card is declined, we can manually enter the card infromation into the POS to obtain a successful authorization. We can successfully obtain authorization on credit card swipes. So we know the track data is being read correctly from the magcard readers and the POS.

If anyone has any ideas of what can be happening it would be most appreciated. We have been told from different sources it could be a multitude of things, each of which we have investigated and either cannot go any further, or turned out to be not it. For instance, since error code 2 is card issuer decline, we have called the banks and asked for a reason and they told it was suspicious because the transaction is coming from maryland (and we are selling in california). I don't know how it would be coming from another state unless that is the bank's doing. Weve also been told it was our hardware, which we have been able to disprove. They also told us it could be invalid CVV2 data, but as far as I know, the card reader should be passing everything in the track data. At this point, any suggestiosn would be beneficial, because I have run out of directions to go.

Thanks!

Re: Error code #2 on debit swipes, seeking advice

Trevor — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:21:16 GMT

As you seem to have guessed, this is most likely going to come down to an issue at your merchant account and not something in your Authorize.Net configuration. Unfortunately, this means that the support that you'll receive in these forums is fairly limited. The best I can do is recommend some specific questions to ask your merchant services provider. I would suggest taking a look at the device type being submitted by your integration to Authorize.Net and then asking if they have any limitations on debit cards being accepted by that type of device. They are obviously allowing debit cards that are submitted via key entry, so it may just be a matter of changing your device type for swiping. They should also be able to take a look at specific transactions and tell you a bit more about the cause of the decline than what you received from Authorize.Net. This might provide some guidance on how to address the issue.

topic Re: Error code #2 on debit swipes, seeking advice in Integration and Testing

Error code #2 on debit swipes, seeking advice

Re: Error code #2 on debit swipes, seeking advice