How to improve payments approval

When making an online payment, the transaction undergoes a careful analysis to minimize fraud risks and ensure that processing takes place without errors.

In this documentation, you will find information about what causes a payment to be declined and some recommendations to prevent this from happening.

A payment may be declined due to an issue with the payment method or because it does not meet the necessary security requirements. For example, if the card does not have enough amount or if there is a strange movement of the account.

Payment refusal is a reality in the world of online sales and can happen for several reasons: incorrect filling of information by the customer, attempted fraud, problem in communication between acquirers, among many other issues.

You can find the information and check the status of a payment via the API, through the Get Payment method. The status field indicates whether the payment was approved, while the status_detail field provides more details, including the reasons for rejection.

This is one of the main reasons a payment might be declined. Occasionally, the buyer can make a mistake when filling in their data, especially address, card numbers, and identification numbers.

In these cases, the status_detail field may return: cc_rejected_bad_filled_date, cc_rejected_bad_filled_other, cc_rejected_bad_filled_security_code

When paying with a credit or debit card, for example, the issuing bank may refuse the charge for different reasons such as the expiration date, insufficient balance or limit, card disabled or blocked for online payments.

In these cases, the status_detail field may return: cc_rejected_call_for_authorize, cc_rejected_card_disabled, cc_rejected_duplicated_payment, cc_rejected_insufficient_amount

When paying, both the issuing bank and Mercado Pago do a series of checks. If our anti-fraud system detects any unusual movement that characterizes a scam or fraud, it will be blocked.

In these cases, the status_detail field may return: cc_rejected_blacklist, cc_rejected_high_risk

To prevent a legitimate payment from being refused because it does not meet security validations, it is necessary to include all possible information when carrying out the transaction. Furthermore, you must pay attention to some security requirements, such as our Security Code and Device ID.

To optimize payment security validation and improve approvals, it is important to submit as much buyer and item data as possible.

When you use the Create payment method, make sure to fill in all the available fields.

You can adapt the Checkout Pro integration to your business model by configuring preference attributes, which help improve approvals.

For more details, visit the Checkout Pro preference setting documentation.

Often, the buyer can make mistakes when filling in their details at checkout. That's why it's worth reviewing every step, interaction, and even the interface design, to ensure everything is as clear as it should be. Please make the necessary changes to prevent confusion or issues.

The reason for refusing payment must be explained to your customers. They need to be able to pay easily!

For example, if a payment is declined because the user does not have enough funds in their bank account, you could recommend they try using a different payment method to complete the transaction.

Add the Mercado Pago security script to your page and replace the view value with the name of the section (e.g., home, search, item)

<script src="https://www.mercadopago.com/v2/security.js" view="home"></script>

The Device ID is an important piece of information to ensure better security and, consequently, a better payment approval rate. It's a unique number that's used to identify a customer's device when they are buying.

If a customer makes a purchase on a different device than usual, this may mean that the purchase was fake and should not be done.

To use it on the web, follow the steps below:

To generate device IDs on your website, add the following code to your Checkout page:

<script src="https://www.mercadopago.com/v2/security.js" view="checkout"></script>

When you add the Mercado Pago security code to your site, a global JavaScript variable is automatically created with the name MP_DEVICE_SESSION_ID, whose value is the device ID.

• If you prefer that we assign it to another variable, indicate the name by adding the attribute output, as in the following example:

<script src="https://www.mercadopago.com/v2/security.js" view="checkout" output="deviceId"></script>

• If you want your own variable, you can add an HTML tag on your site as id="deviceId" and the code will automatically assign the value device_id.

<input type="hidden" id="deviceId">

When creating a payment, you need to send us the Device ID value. To do so, simply add the following header to the request:

X-meli-session-id: device_id

If you have a native application, you can capture the device information with our SDK and send it when creating the token. Follow these steps:

          
use_frameworks!
pod ‘MercadoPagoDevicesSDK’

        

          
repositories {
    maven {
        url "https://artifacts.mercadolibre.com/repository/android-releases"
    }
}
dependencies {
   implementation 'com.mercadolibre.android.device:sdk:3.0.5'
}

        

          
import MercadoPagoDevicesSDK
...
func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
        ...        
        MercadoPagoDevicesSDK.shared.execute()
        ...
}

        

          
@import ‘MercadoPagoDevicesSDK’;
...
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
    ...
    [[MercadoPagoDevicesSDK shared] execute];
    ...
}

        

          
import com.mercadolibre.android.device.sdk.DeviceSDK;


DeviceSDK.getInstance().execute(this);

        

Execute one of these functions to obtain the information in the format that you prefer.

          
MercadoPagoDevicesSDK.shared.getInfo() // Returns a Codable Device Object
MercadoPagoDevicesSDK.shared.getInfoAsJson() // Returns a JSON Library Data Object
MercadoPagoDevicesSDK.shared.getInfoAsJsonString() // Returns a JSON String
MercadoPagoDevicesSDK.shared.getInfoAsDictionary() // Returns a Dictionary<String,Any>

        

          
[[[MercadoPagoDevicesSDK] shared] getInfoAsJson] // Returns a JSON Library Data Object
[[[MercadoPagoDevicesSDK] shared] getInfoAsJsonString] // Returns a JSON String
[[[MercadoPagoDevicesSDK] shared] getInfoAsDictionary] // Returns a Dictionary<String,Any>

        

          
Device device = DeviceSDK.getInstance().getInfo() // Returns a Serializable Device Object
Map deviceMap = DeviceSDK.getInstance().getInfoAsMap()  // Returns a Map<String, Object>
String jsonString = DeviceSDK.getInstance().getInfoAsJsonString() // Returns a JSON String

        

Finally, send the information in the device field when creating the card_token.

{
    ...,
     "device":{
      "fingerprint":{
         "os":"iOS",
         "system_version":"8.3",
         "ram":18446744071562067968,
         "disk_space":498876809216,
         "model":"MacBookPro9,2",
         "free_disk_space":328918237184,
         "vendor_ids":[
            {
               "name":"vendor_id",
               "value":"C2508642-79CF-44E4-A205-284A4F4DE04C"
            },
            {
               "name":"uuid",
               "value":"AB28738B-8DC2-4EC2-B514-3ACF330482B6"
            }
         ],
         "vendor_specific_attributes":{
            "feature_flash":false,
            "can_make_phone_calls":false,
            "can_send_sms":false,
            "video_camera_available":true,
            "cpu_count":4,
            "simulator":true,
            "device_languaje":"en",
            "device_idiom":"Phone",
            "platform":"x86_64",
            "device_name":"iPhone Simulator",
            "device_family":4,
            "retina_display_capable":true,
            "feature_camera":false,
            "device_model":"iPhone Simulator",
            "feature_front_camera":false
         },
         "resolution":"375x667"
      }
}