AdWords CC Declines

[ISGKelly]

Does anyone else experience regular credit card declines on AdWords? Every time I contact my credit card company to investigate, they tell me that there has been no report of a decline, and that I'm well within my spend limits.

I'm running about 30 accounts through MCC, and everyday, I see between 3-5 of these citing a "Credit Card Declined" or "Ad Delivery Stopped" message.

Each time, it's been an issue on Google's end.

Advice? Perhaps I could use my personal card and rack up some bonus miles...

[abbottsys]

It might be a temporary google issue. Check the CC expiration dates. I recently got an email alert from google saying my CC had expired and my account was offline - the account was in fact online ok and my CC exp date was March 2011.

[Mel66]

And make sure you've entered a backup credit card on Adwords. We had problems like this in the past, and a couple years ago our ads went offline 2 days before Christmas. Not a good situation for an online retailer. This was before backup cards were an option. Now we have one on file, so at least our ads stay up.

As to the technical difficulties on Google's end, I have had this happen, and usually it was a case of the data breaking down somewhere between the card provider and Google (or Yahoo, one time). We worked with our card provider and they were able to fix it. Not sure if this applies to you though.

Melissa

[Discovery]

To add on to Mel66's point. Card authorization/Fraud controls may change with Google or your card provider from time to time. For example, we had a card for a client on file where they didnt use their suite number in the billing address. It worked fine for years, then one day, declined. Updated the address and we were back in business.

Another item to be weary of is having your card frozen due to multiple charges in a short time period. Meaning, companies like Yahoo top off your account according to your 3 day ad spend average. If you unknowingly set your max charge to your credit card to $50 and spend $300 in one day Yahoo may attempt to charge your card 6 times in a day. This will freeze most cards, until the autorizations can be reviewed and confirmed or you call in and approve them.

Discovery

[Mel66]

Good points Discovery. We have had this happen - our card provider cuts us off due to what they think are excessive charges in one day. We've had to call and explain how PPC billing works.... They finally put a note in our file so this doesn't happen any more.

Melissa

[AussieWebmaster]

Back up credit cards are the best way to work around this. Or change to monthly billing.
If you have been working with Google for any amount of time using a MCC account you should be able to get credit - and then make sure you cut checks fast to cover the payments and you will build even higher credit.