If a cardholder receives a “soft decline” when paying for goods or services, your POS prompts you to call the cardholder’s issuing bank. The issuing bank will ask you for information about the transaction and then do one of the following:
- Decline the transaction
- Approve the transaction and give you an authorization code to run a force sale
How do I run a force sale?
When you receive an authorization code, use the POS to run a force sale. To run a force sale, you or your cardholder must provide the card’s PAN and expiration date by doing one of the following:
- Swipe the card on the magnetic stripe reader
- Tap the card on the contactless reader
- Key the card details using the keypad
- Insert the card into the card slot
Note: You can’t provide the cardholder with cashback or tip prompts when running a force sale.
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Tags: auth code, authorization code, forced sale, Soft decline, force sale, issuing bank