API getting 'GENERIC_DECLINE' error response when actually insufficient funds

Questions
1

I am using the v2 API to create payments in Square. It seems the error codes being sent back aren’t accurate though. I am receiving '‘GENERIC_DECLINE’ where the actual issue is insufficient funds. My client has a lot of customers with low funds, but via the API we get ‘GENERIC_DECLINE’, despite ‘INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS’ being one of the many error codes available according to the documentation. Is there any fix for this?

2

Thanks for sharing. Can you provide one of the payment_ids so I can take a look at my end?

3

He, Here are a few examples:
ZoUDYoKs2Vhm5p0ZEGIo2EP7KJEZY
R0YpsAeQ5JWh3JfI8D2y6pC59fOZY
dgDvHPi5lU9xyWeemY0JZc8wUyCZY
pIo99lQ2GT3XcBfsuzO2NrPyaFXZY

4

Thanks, I’m seeing the same as you. I’ve passed this along to the Payments team, who think it’s due to how our gateways are surfacing the error. They are looking into it, and I will update this once I have more information.

5

Hello, is there any update on this? Thanks

6

No updates unfortunately. It looks like there’s some work to be done on the gateway side of things, but I do not have an ETA on when it will be resolved.

7

Hi, Any update on this thread? we are having the same problem. Many of our requests are erroring out with “GENERIC_DECLINE” error code but subsequent (3rd or 4th try) the same card is being processed.

8

I’ve actually found since the start of December I’m getting ‘insufficient funds’ rather than ‘generic decline’ for most of the failed transactions, so it seems something has been fixed. But I’m still a handful with the ‘generic decline’ response. I haven’t tried putting those ones through again.

9

Still no update on this? As said in my last comment - I have been getting some responses with the ‘insufficient_funds’ now, but still some with ‘generic_decline’ with no idea why these ones vary.

10

Apologies for the delays here, I actually missed the update from our internal team. It looks like this was pushed internally around November 19th, 2020, and was pushed out probably within a few days after that. I definitely do see an error around “insufficient funds”, now. Are you saying you still get generic declines when you know it’s due to lack of funds? Can you provide an example payment_id, and I can take another look? Thanks for following up on this!

11

hi sjosey,

Confirming I am seeing the insufficient_funds error appearing since December, but there are still a fair number of 'generic_decline’s. I don’t know what the issue is with these clients - I’m assuming insufficient funds also, but maybe there is another cause. It would be helpful to know though.

Examples:
PzqERqXPjym1ohVa0xIUd6blFdIZY
5A2aWd4wwi9FCADxTRYs8fjASdEZY
1YhTPPUMYylqSWZ9FJfi5Twx4D6YY
xUGW7tg3frwdvGblcDOV2u9TQjXZY
LNcuNSBopmmnbiSOV2KB0wtwVeHZY
r9yzGsgSnPg4oG6WnZVcBA60MoSZY

Thanks!
Caitlin

12

Thanks for confirming. Taking a look at the others, and as far as I can see none of them are related to insufficient funds, although I do not have much more information than that. They’re pretty generic errors even on my side, so in these cases I would suggest having the customer contact their bank for assistance, as I think it’s something related to their bank.

13

Good to know, thanks for following up.

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