Payment Problems: Declined Cards, Pending PayPal and Bitcoin That Has Not Arrived
What each card, PayPal and Bitcoin checkout message means, whether you were charged, and when to wait, pay another way or contact support.
Start with the Orders page
Open Orders in the dashboard. Every checkout you start creates a row there, and its status tells you which section below applies:
| Status on Orders | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
completed | Paid and delivered | Your proxies are on the Proxies page |
pending | We have not been told the outcome yet: a Bitcoin payment confirming, a PayPal payment PayPal has not completed, or a card payment held for review | Do not pay again. Read the matching section below |
failed | The checkout ended without a payment: a declined card, an expired Bitcoin invoice, or a PayPal checkout that was never approved | Use Try again on the row, or pay another way. If the row says part of your Bitcoin payment was received, contact support instead |
refunded | The payment was returned | See refunds and buying the wrong plan |
When a row has no button, the Actions column says why, for example "Waiting for payment to confirm". A pending row offers Complete payment only once it is a day old, because until then the original payment page may still be live and paying twice is the risk. A PayPal payment that PayPal is holding as pending does not get the button at all: the money is already on its way.
Card declined
A declined card is never charged. The checkout message ends with "You have not been charged. You can also pay with PayPal or Bitcoin." An email titled "Your Node4 payment didn't go through" follows, with a button that puts the plan back in your cart.
What to do:
- Try PayPal or Bitcoin. Most refusals come from the card issuer, not from us, and they are common on cards issued outside the US: many banks block card payments to a US company by default. Retrying the same card rarely changes the answer.
- Or call your bank and ask it to allow the payment, then use Try again on the order row.
- Check the billing postal code you entered. A mismatch with the code your bank holds is a frequent reason for a refusal.
Three other card messages are not your bank declining:
- "We couldn't accept this card from your location, and you have not been charged." A card issued in the US used from a connection in another country is refused by our card rules, and the authorization is voided. Pay with PayPal or Bitcoin, or use a card issued in your country.
- "For your security, we can't accept another new card on this account today." Several different new cards on one account in a day trigger this. PayPal and Bitcoin still work, or contact support.
- "We could not reach our payment processor. You have not been charged." A fault on our side. Wait a few minutes and try again.
Card payment held for review
If checkout says "Your payment is being reviewed and isn't confirmed yet", the amount is authorized on your card but not captured, and nothing is activated. The order stays pending.
Do not pay again, by card or any other method. A held authorization can still be captured, so a second payment could charge you twice. While the review is open, a new card checkout on the account is refused with "Your last card payment is still being reviewed". We email you once the review is decided: either the order is delivered, or the authorization is voided and your bank releases the hold.
A similar message, "We are still confirming your last card payment", means the card network did not tell us whether the charge went through. Wait for our email rather than retrying; you will not be charged twice.
If checkout reports that "Your payment went through (order #...), but setting up your plan hit a problem", the money arrived and delivery is being finished. Do not pay again; write to support quoting the order number if you need it sooner.
PayPal payment pending
A PayPal payment can be approved but held by PayPal as pending, for example an eCheck or a payment PayPal is reviewing. We deliver nothing until PayPal completes it, and then delivery happens automatically, with no action from you. The order shows pending until then. Do not pay again while PayPal shows the payment as pending, because a second payment could charge you twice. PayPal's own activity page shows the state of the payment on its side.
If you opened the PayPal page and closed it without approving, nothing was taken. After 72 hours, once PayPal confirms the checkout no longer exists, the order closes as failed and Try again starts a fresh PayPal checkout from the same cart.
If PayPal shows the money as taken and the order is still pending a few hours later, contact support with the PayPal transaction ID.
Bitcoin not arrived, underpaid or expired
A Bitcoin invoice is open for 60 minutes at a locked exchange rate. Send the exact amount the invoice shows, in one transaction.
- Paid, still pending. The order is delivered when the transaction is confirmed on the network, not when it is first seen. That can take from minutes to longer when the network is busy. A payment broadcast before the invoice expired still settles after the hour has passed. Do not open a second invoice.
- Slightly short. A payment up to 1% short of the invoice is accepted and delivered as normal, which covers wallet rounding and fee-inclusive sends.
- More than 1% short. Nothing is delivered and the order waits for a person. Open a ticket with the invoice ID: support can accept a small shortfall, or refund you so you can pay again. Do not send a top-up to the old invoice.
- Overpaid. The order is delivered normally. Extra crypto is not added to your account automatically, so open a ticket with the invoice ID if you sent noticeably more.
- Paid after the invoice expired. BTCPay records the payment but does not settle the invoice, so nothing is delivered on its own. You get a "Bitcoin Payment Received Late" notice, and support either delivers the order or refunds you. Contact support with the invoice ID, and do not pay again.
- Expired with nothing paid. The order closes as
failed. Start a new checkout when you are ready.
Starting the same Bitcoin checkout again while its invoice is still open returns you to that invoice instead of creating a second one, so a refreshed page does not leave two invoices waiting for payment.
Account credit is applied automatically on Bitcoin only. A Bitcoin invoice already has your credit deducted; card and PayPal are charged the full price and your credit balance is left for a later Bitcoin payment. Understanding your invoice shows how credit appears on an invoice.
When to contact support
Support and billing are available 24/7, and we reply within 12 hours. Open a ticket from Support with the category Billing, or write to support@node4.io, and include:
- the order number from Orders;
- for Bitcoin, the invoice ID and the transaction ID from your wallet;
- for PayPal, the PayPal transaction ID;
- for a card, the last four digits and the exact message checkout showed.
Contact us for a held card payment that has not been decided, any Bitcoin payment that was short, late or overpaid, a PayPal payment that is complete at PayPal but pending here, or a completed order whose proxies are not on the Proxies page.
If the problem is a renewal rather than a first purchase, an unpaid renewal is paused, never canceled; subscription management explains the hold and how to resume. Prices for every plan are on the pricing page.