We have compiled three basic problems and solutions about virtual cards that provide the convenience of making secure payments without sharing our credit card.
A large part of the consumers who shop online have doubts about the security of credit card information entered on the sites. Virtual cards created for this purpose do not work perfectly. In this article, we take a look at the main problems in virtual card payments and their solutions.
What is a Virtual Card?
Virtual cards that are connected to a prepaid account or credit card are a financial technology service that is physically unavailable and that is required during an online payment, generating instantly the card number, expiry date and card verification code (CVV) in electronic environment. Thanks to virtual cards, it is possible to continue online shopping experience more freely and securely by keeping the actual cards away from the danger of the cyber world.
Virtual cards can be obtained instantly in digital media (internet banking) in almost all banks with credit cards. It is usually offered free of charge as there are no printing and transportation costs like a physical card. Some financial institutions offer users the opportunity to create as many virtual cards as they want. Thus, users can maximize payment security by producing a virtual card for each shopping. Most financial institutions, on the other hand, consider virtual cards as a resource, and offer certain limits and conditions.
There is no requirement to have a credit card in order to obtain a virtual card. While some banks allow the creation of virtual cards linked to a drawing account, organizations such as Papara and Pep offer the opportunity to provide virtual cards without any bank connection.
Banking and financial technologies have a very complex structure. Online payments are made through the API between the bank and the website, so an error that may occur every second may return a message that the payment was not successful. In such cases, it is necessary to focus on the solution of the problem by keeping our principle of not sharing our original card.
Let’s take a closer look at the 3 most common problems and their solutions.
Unsuccessful Provision Due To Missing Or 0 Balance
As we have stated, financial technologies are quite complex and versatile. During an e-commerce transaction, many control mechanisms must function flawlessly in the background. One of the most important of these is the balance control aiming to protect the seller. You will also appreciate that no online platform wants to start a subscription on a virtual card with 0 balance in it. Therefore, your virtual card must have a balance of at least 1 dollar above the payment amount (for international shopping).
For example, in a $ 10 online order process, the virtual pos system tries to get a $ 1 or less / large amount of authorization to determine whether the card is valid, in other words, fake / stolen. After the card passes this stage, it collects $ 10 and cancels the $ 1 provisional provision for verification. If the user defined a limit of $ 11 for his virtual card, he would have completed his payment without any problems. However, since it sets a limit without calculating the verification authorization, it will receive a “You Do Not Have Adequate Balance” warning and will not be able to complete the payment process.
Apart from the scenario we have derived above, there is also a problem with systems that request card information for verification purposes. Systems such as Netflix and Amazon require card information, even though they state that they will not charge you for a certain period of time for membership and will offer free trial. Users generally say, “It won’t take money anyway!” leaving the limit of the virtual card as 0 with this thought. In this case, the above scenario will work and the process will fail. Therefore, even if there is a verification of 0.00, the balance sufficient to verify in the virtual cards must be defined.
Prepaid Card / Credit Card Problem
You will appreciate that 16-digit credit cards and virtual cards consisting of blocks of 4 have been created with a specific algorithm. Therefore, virtual pos systems can understand which bank belongs to and which type of credit they have, based on just a few digits of a credit card. Most of the online services may not accept ATM debit cards and virtual cards, which are in the Prepaid card class, with the concern that they will not be able to collect their payments on time. In this case, it is necessary to try again by choosing virtual cards connected to the credit card. Thinking that the relevant service may have blocked your bank cards, trying virtual cards belonging to different banks and institutions can solve you.
TL / Currency Conversion Problem in Foreign Payments
Although the medium we buy while shopping from abroad demands foreign currency from us, payment technologies instantly convert TL to foreign currency and collect the TL equivalent of the said currency amount to the seller channel. However, this scenario may not work perfectly as we have always described. Payment may fail due to failure to convert or return an unforeseen different error code. In this case, the most rational method would be to arrange our credit card and linked virtual card to be charged in foreign currency. (It is an option only supported by certain banks.) By applying this method, it is possible to eliminate the problem.
