Credit Card Bill Payment Failed: Reasons and What To Do?

When you pay your credit card bill, the following three scenarios can happen:

Successful Payment: This means your bill payment transaction goes through successfully. The amount will be debited from your selected bank account and credited to your card within the promised timeline.

Pending Payment: In this case, the payment has been initiated but has not yet been confirmed as successful. The amount may already have been debited from your bank account, while the payment is yet to be credited to your credit card account. This could happen due to a technical glitch on the payment platform or some other technical reasons at the bank’s end.

Failed Payment: In case of a credit card bill payment failure, the transaction has not been completed successfully. The amount may or may not be deducted from the bank account depending on the reason for the failure. Here again, the credit card bill stands unpaid and you will have to try making another payment.

There could be several reasons why a credit card bill payment might fail. Given below are some of the most common reasons:

Insufficient Balance in the Bank Account: If the balance in your savings account is lower than the amount you are trying to pay towards your credit card bill, the transaction will fail instantly.

Incorrect Credit Card or Payment Details: If wrong credit card details are entered at the time of making payment or if you enter the wrong details of NEFT or UPI or other transaction details, then the transaction be declined and the payment will fail. For example, if you enter incorrect IFSC or Account Details for NEFT/Bank Transfer, the payment will fail.

Bank or Payment Gateway Technical Issues: Sometimes, the bank or the third party payment platform may have some technical issues due to which your payment may not go through or get stuck at some point.

Suspended Bank Account or Card: The account or debit card through which you are attempting the payment should be active. If the card is expired or the account is inactive, the bill payment would fail.

Temporary Bank Server Downtime: Credit card bill payment can also fail sometimes due to bank server downtime or any other server error. In such cases, you should wait for some time and again attempt the payment.

Apart from these, your card bill payment may also be declined if the card issuer’s systems are down or if the transaction was declined by the bank due to some internal factors.

If your credit card bill payment fails, you should take the following steps.

1. Check the payment status: See if the payment is showing pending or failed, as the recourse would be different in both cases.
2. Check whether the amount was debited: This is the most important thing to check when you face a payment failure.

• • Amount not debited: Retry the payment using the same or another payment method.
  • Amount debited but payment failed: Do not make multiple payments immediately; first check whether the amount is reversed/credited back and contact the payment platform or bank if required.

3. Retry the payment using another payment method: If you made the first payment via NEFT and it failed, try making the payment through other modes like UPI, Debit Card or Bill Desk, etc.
4. Contact the bank or credit card issuer: If the payment continues to fail or the status remains unresolved, contact the bank, card issuer or payment platform, as applicable. Before contacting, ensure you have your transaction ID or reference number ready. They may also require you to share proof of amount debit, like a screenshot or payment confirmation message.

If you made the payment on the due and it failed, it may lead to late payment charges as well as finance charges on your credit card. In addition to this, if the payment stands pending for several days, it could also have a major impact on your credit score. Therefore, it is advisable to make your credit card bill payment well before the due date. This gives you enough time to resolve any payment-related issues and make another payment if the original transaction fails.

Here, it is important to understand the distinction between a failed and pending payment. If your money was deducted but the payment was not successful, you should wait for the bank to refund the transaction before attempting several payments. However, if the amount was not deducted, you can try to make the payment using some other method.