This is the most common cause of a merchant pre-decline. Pre-declines are when you attempt to purchase, the merchant declines, but the transaction doesn't show in your transaction list.
Merchants and their respective processor have their own risk tolerance. If they view the transaction as high-risk, they will decline it. They are concerned with a user purchasing an item, then initiating a chargeback after receiving the item, which is not possible on our platform.
Most often, the merchants will decline without attempting the card. Usually, they will give a generic error like "card not accepted", "not enough funds" or similar, even though it's due to their risk engine.
This is optimal from a merchant's perspective, because notifying the user "this appears to be fraudulent" will either:
Inform a fraudster that their card is being viewed as high-risk, which informs the fraudster to change their strategy. Or,
Creates frustration for a non-fraudulent user, which is a loss of revenue for the merchant.
In almost all cases, a user using a normal browser, no VPN, a matching billing address, and operating from and/or delivering to a high-trust country (as determined by the merchant) will not be viewed as high-risk. We see very, very few declines under these conditions.
To ensure the merchant and processor correctly view you as low-risk:
Do not use a VPN when ordering on the merchant's website.
Use a normal browser, such as Chrome or Safari. Not Tor or Brave.
Use a billing address that matches your card's billing address and/or your shipping address.
You can also reduce your perceived risk by adding the card to other payment providers if the business accepts payments through those routes:
PayPal: Adding your Laso card to PayPal is recommended as it increases acceptance rate. You can spend at any business that accepts PayPal payments.
Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay: These mobile wallets are supported on certain card types. Adding your card to these wallets can increase transaction success rates, especially for in-person purchases.
Other payment providers: If the merchant accepts other digital payment methods (like shop-specific wallets or buy-now-pay-later services that work with prepaid cards), these can also help reduce the merchant's risk perception of your transaction.
These alternative payment methods work because they add an additional layer of verification and trust between you and the merchant, making your transaction appear less risky to their fraud detection systems.