When my customer made a payment, the error message "payment declined" appeared. What should I do?

This could be for the following reasons:

1. The customer is on our internal blacklist and is therefore excluded from making purchases.
2. The customer has failed their credit check. BEFORE we make a debit, we perform a credit check and a comparison with "blacklists" to protect you and ourselves against fraud and possible chargebacks. In addition to a comparison with our internal blacklist (see 1.), we check whether there were serious complications with payments in the past with that customer (e.g. frequent chargebacks) with providers such as Schufa and Creditreform. The credit check is not performed by ourselves or the recipient bank, but by an independent third-party provider before the purchase. However, we ourselves don't have direct access to the credit check provider's database. We only send a request and get a YES or NO as a result.

You can now do the following:

1. You can recommend that your customer tries again later.
2. If it still doesn't work, we recommend that the customer tries another payment method. Copy the link to their order confirmation page and ask your customer to click on the "Change payment method" button. You can find detailed instructions here.

Note
If you activate our reminder feature for the product, a total of 3 reminder emails will be sent automatically in such cases. You can find out exactly how this works here.  

How can I cancel a subscription for my customer?

If a customer has asked you to cancel a subscription, you can do this for them under Reports > Transactions. First of all, find the right order, then click on the magnifying glass icon and on "Pause payments".

See also Refunds and returns.

My customer wants to change payment method. How does this work?

Your customer will find the button "Change payment method" in the top right-hand corner of the order confirmation page.

If they lose the link, you can go to Reports > Transactions, find the order with the customer's name, click on the paper icon, and then copy the link from the order confirmation page and resend it to your customer.

My customer wants to change payment plan. How can I do this?

For example, if a customer wants to change from a monthly to an annual payment, you can set up an upgrade. This upgrade takes the customer back to the order form and allows them to select a different payment plan.

See also Changes to subscriptions and installment payments.

How can I refund an order for my customer?

If a customer asks for a refund, you can do this for them under Reports > Transactions. First of all, find the right order, then click on the magnifying glass icon and on the "Refund" button at the very bottom.

See also Refunds and returns.

Why can't my customer get a refund?

This can have two causes:

1. You've specified that the customer will waive their right of return upon purchase. This is possible for digital content, software, services and seminars. Read more here.
2. You've set a return period. Return periods can be 14, 30 or a maximum of 60 days. If this period is exceeded, a refund is no longer possible. You can learn how to set return periods here.

If you want to issue a refund for your customer yourself and you can't, please read the next question.

Why can't I issue a refund for my customer?

You can issue a refund in the order details under Reports > Transactions up to 60 days after purchase. It doesn't matter if you set a return period of 0, 14, 30 or 60 days: Either way, you can only return a product for 60 days.

If this period is already over, Digistore24 can no longer help you. We recommend that you propose a reverse transfer back to the customer.

How do I create a URL for upgrades/downgrades/member offers?

Your customers purchase upgrades, downgrades and member offers through a special upgrade URL. This URL is displayed in the upgrade properties (under Account > Upgrades) after clicking on the pencil icon.

Example: https://www.digistore24.com/upgrade/123-abcdabcdabcd/ORDERID

The ORDERID placeholder should be replaced by the order ID of the customer's existing order. Each customer therefore has their own upgrade URL through this individual order ID. This is necessary so that only authorized customers can purchase an upgrade.

Upgrades, downgrades and member offers are usually offered in a member area. If you have a member area and use DigiMember, you can use the upgrade shortcode. The upgrade shortcode is also displayed in the upgrade editor, e.g.: [ds_upgrade id=123-abcdabcdabcd]. DigiMember will then replace this shortcode with the customer's upgrade URL. The corresponding order ID is automatically inserted in the process.

What happens when a customer upgrades from an annual subscription to a more expensive monthly subscription?

John ordered the annual basic membership for €77/year. After 6 months, he wants to change to the premium membership for €17/month. For the remaining period of the old subscription, there is still credit of €38.50. The payment of the installment is reduced by €16 to €1 for this purpose. The first payment cannot be less than €1.

The remaining €22.50 (€38.50 - €16) will be converted into days. The new subscription costs €17/month. At 30 days/month, €22.50 equates to 39 days (rounded down). The calculation is: (30 days/€17) x €22.50 = €39.71 days. The first payment of €1 is made immediately and the second payment of €17 is made after 39 days. After that it continues in monthly intervals.

My upgrade URL doesn't work. Why?

Please check if the purchase type of your product is a single payment, because upgrades are only provided for subscriptions and installments, so upgrading single payments is not possible.

To stop the error message from appearing when accessing the upgrade URL, you would need to change your product's payment plan to a subscription or installment plan.

Where can I find the invoice for an order?

You can find the invoices for orders in the Digistore24 backoffice.

1. In the vendor view, go to Reports > Transactions.
2. Search for the respective order using the customer's last name, email address or order ID.
3. Click on the PDF icon D for the corresponding order to download the invoice.

Why was a refund given when no refund was supposed to be possible?

Please make sure if it's actually a refund or if your customer made a chargeback. These are not the same:

• A refund is processed either through you as the product seller or through us as the contractual partner; it cannot be performed by the customer themselves.
• A chargeback is carried out by the customer at their house bank. We have no influence on this. The customer can initiate a chargeback within one year after the debit. If you've activated the automatic reminder procedure for your product, this will be started automatically, as this is not a valid revocation.

If a chargeback has actually been made, you can find out how to proceed here.

Link in the order confirmation email doesn't work. What should I do?

If you've checked your entire sales process and the links sent to you in the order confirmation cannot be accessed, this may be due to the following reasons:

You're using plugins that do not work properly. This can often be due to the WordPress security plugin Better WP Security. This plugin has the setting option Prevent long URL strings. This setting should definitely be disabled, otherwise very long URLs are truncated when accessed.

There are also server security settings that do not allow long URLs. Here we can do nothing but suggest you contact your server admin to adjust the security settings to your needs. Or you can look for a server provider that allows long URLs.

Moreover, it may be due to the hoster you use if it has settings that do not work properly. You should check these settings to see if you can find a solution and seek the help of a programmer if necessary.

Tip
You can find freelancers to help you with technical challenges at www.machdudas.de.