Is it possible to create a customer payment profile with track data without creating a transaction?

[erangalp]

I operate a management system for small businesses that allows them to add payment cards to their customers' profiles, for recurring and on-demand billing. Creating a customer profile using createCustomerProfileRequest works fine using keyed credit-card details, but when I try to use the track data instead, similar to how I would use it in createTransactionRequest, it fails returning "E00013 - Payment information is invalid."

After doing a bit of research, I found that it should be possible to create a customer profile from a swiped card data using createCustomerProfileFromTransactionRequest off of a successful transaction. However, creating customer profiles and updating the payment card later is not necessarily tied to an actual transaction in my system.

Is there a way to create a customer payment profile with card track data through the API directly, without creating a transaction? I've considered creating a small transaction for $0.01 and then void it, but from my experience some banks have a tendency to put a block on the credit-card if you do that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[RichardH]

Hello @erangalp

You are correct in that you cannot use track data to create a customer profile, but you do have the option of using a transactionID to create a profile later.

Richard

[erangalp]

Thanks for replying, Richard. That is a shame, since we intended to use Authorize.net to handle our customers that would like to use Card-present transactions at their physical locations.

What are your thoughts on creating a transaction of $0.01 using track data, creating a customer profile with it, and then voiding the transaction immediately after? Is this something Authorize.net supports (from my understanding, it does something similar when I create a customer profile using credit-card details) and how can I avoid getting the card picked up by fraud tools bank use? (creating a small charge to test credit cards is a common tactic for online fraud).