Error when buying subscription only with cards from foreign countries

Hi @orballa,

Thank you for reaching out.

I’m sorry to hear about the issues you’re facing with customers from foreign countries not being able to make a purchase.

Upgrading to the latest version of the plugin is definitely a good step towards resolving this issue, as it ensures that you have the most recent bug fixes and improvements. However, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the problem will be solved.

In order to test if the update fixed the issue, I would recommend the following:

1. Replicating the error without a foreign card; you might consider using Stripe’s test card numbers for different countries, which you can find here. This can help you simulate transactions from various countries without actually having a card from there. You can find more details on testing the Stripe WooCommerce Extension here.
2. You can opt to personally reach out to your customers whose cards had previously failed to make a purchase and ask them to test it out for you so that we can be able to rule out if this issue persists.

Please try the aforementioned steps, and let us know how it goes.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

We have tried to replicate the error on a staging site myself and WooCommerce Subscriptions support and have been unsuccessful. I’ve found that this error has happened to other people and it seems to be with WooCommerce, but in this case the strange thing is that it happens randomly…

Hi @orballa ,

Thank you for reaching out and explaining the issue. I understand how frustrating it can be to deal with a random and inconsistent problem, especially when it works perfectly in your tests but fails for some of your customers. Let’s break this down and explore why this might be happening and how to address it.

One possible reason for this behavior is that international payments can be influenced by several external factors, such as payment gateway restrictions or additional requirements like 3D Secure authentication. These elements are dependent on the customer’s card issuer, country-specific regulations, or Stripe’s internal fraud prevention systems. Since these processes vary by region and transaction, it could explain why the issue appears random and why it’s challenging to replicate on your staging site.

To troubleshoot this further, I recommend enabling logging for Stripe in WooCommerce. This will capture detailed error messages during failed transactions, which can provide insights into what’s happening. You can enable this by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > Stripe > Advanced Settings and checking the “Debug Mode” option. Once enabled, monitor the logs for any patterns related to the failed transactions (e.g., specific error codes or responses from Stripe).

Additionally, you may want to confirm that your Stripe account is set up to handle international transactions and that no country restrictions are accidentally in place. Sometimes, card issuers in specific countries may require extra verification (e.g., 3D Secure), so enabling support for this in your Stripe settings is critical.

You can also test the payment using a 3D Secure testing card provided by Stripe. For more details, check out their documentation here: https://docs.stripe.com/testing#regulatory-cards. This will help you verify if the issue is related to 3D Secure.

Please let us know what you find after testing—we’re here to help further!

Just to add – It would also help us to review your current System Status Report to gain more insight into your setup. You can find this report in your WooCommerce dashboard by going to WooCommerce > Status. From there, please select Get system report and then Copy for support.

If there are any fatal error logs, please share those as well. These can be accessed under WooCommerce > Status > Logs.

Once you’ve gathered this information, please paste it into a Code block in your reply or use pastebin.com and share the link with us.

Thanks.

Where can I check directly that the Stripe account has support for 3D Secure?

Yes, I already had Debug mode enabled in WooCommerce, but it doesn’t say much. I’ve pasted below the system report + the log from the 14th, when I know that a purchase attempt was made and the error appeared again: https://pastebin.com/kW1m7ptW

Thanks for your help

Hi @orballa

Stripe is by default eligible for 3D Secure card transactions, so you won’t find any specific settings in your account dashboard to confirm whether this is enabled. However, I recommend reaching out to Stripe Support to ensure it hasn’t been disabled for your account.

To narrow down the issue, could you confirm if only 3D Secure card transactions are being declined?

To replicate and test 3D Secure transactions, you can use Stripe’s test cards designed for this purpose. Enable test mode in your Stripe settings and use the following test card number:

• Card Number: 4000 0000 0000 3220
• Expiry Date: Any future date
• CVC: Any three-digit number

This card will simulate a 3D Secure authentication flow, allowing you to observe how your checkout process handles such transactions.

After reviewing your logs, I couldn’t find anything suspicious that might be causing the issue. If the issue occurs randomly and isn’t replicable on your side, it might be worth checking with Stripe to see if there are any restrictions applied to transactions from specific countries on your account.

Please check this and let me know how it goes!