• bunq and ProtonMail

Hi all,

I’m facing an issue adding a bunq online card as payment method for ProtonMail.

Whenever I fill in the online card information, the card gets rejected. However, there is no sign of any transaction in the bunq app (no notification and nothing in the events overview).

I then tried with my bunq green card. The payment gets rejected again, however bunq does send me a push notification stating that a payment of CHF 0 was made. This transaction does also not appear in my events list though.

Long story short: I cannot add any of my bunq MasterCards (online or green card) as a payment method for ProtonMail. Support from both bunq and ProtonMail don’t know why either and both say to contact the other.

So, hopefully the community has some more information on this. Anyone else experienced something similar or has a solution at hand?

Thanks!

    Hi 👋 @R#140154

    Usually this happens when the BIN database of the merchant or their payment provider isn't up to date. But in that case there shouldn't be an event in the bunq app as it's already blocked before reaching bunq.

    Edit: This could happen to the Travel Card and Green Card as they are relatively new cards with a new BIN range.

      @Tim#140159 Thanks Tim. I will pass this on to the Proton support team. Hopefully this can help fix the issue.

        Hey, I paid for my ProtonMail subscription in August 2019 with a bunq Mastercard Debit and had no problems.

        I can confirm however that when trying to add a new card now I'm getting the error "Your card was declined. Please try a different card or contact your bank to authorize the charge", even though this card should work just fine. There's also no event in the app.

          @Jakob#140193 It’s the same for me👌

            Hey @R#140160 👋🏽

            Thanks for bringing this to our attention. When a merchant sends an account authorisation to a card (i.e. a €0 "payment") we do not show this in the app. Now that you've brought this to our attention it's definitely something for us to evaluate as potentially it makes sense to show this information to you 😄

            I will take a look into your case as well as reach out to Proton and their acquirer to see if they can help us get to the bottom of this!

              @Neihana#140202 Thanks a lot for the clear explanation and your support! Do let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to ask/test as I’m also in contact with ProtonMail support.

                Hey @R#140204, if they provide you with any information about why your authorisation failed, I would be interested to know. If you'd prefer to contact support with this information, that's of course also fine just mention that you want to pass some information on to me (nathan) 🙂

                I'll also reach out if I find out anything relevant

                  @Neihana#140205
                  Sure! They haven't provided me with any information regarding the authorization yet, but will let you know if they do. The only information I've got so far is from their error message: 'Your card was declined. Please try a different card or contact your bank to authorize the charge'.

                  One thing I do notice is that whenever I use the online card I use for all my online subscriptions I do NOT get a bunq notification on my phone either. However, when I use my green card, I do get a bunq notification stating that a payment of CHF 0 was made. Both cards get rejected by ProtonMail though. I don't think is a big deal, but it does show there is some difference in the way the cards are treated.

                  Now, the online card does work for other services, so I don't think the issue is necessarily with bunq. I decided to ask here anyway because it could be related to the fact that the company is Swiss. I do think Tim his suggestion could be true seeing as other users face the same issue.

                    @R#140206 Ist es auch notwendig, dass die Schweiz 🇨🇭 als erlaubtes Land freischaltet ist?

                      @Heiko-Hartwig#140242 Yeah, at least it was for me as I changed my settings in the past

                        @Heiko-Hartwig#140242 @R#140243

                        Allowed countries shouldn't effect online payments as they only apply to (PoS) card/mobile wallet payments. When they do affect an online payment then the merchant doesn't process the payment properly and might fail due to security reasons.

                        It would be very annoying if the allowed countries filter would be necessary for online payments as you never know in which country a merchant or their payment processor will process your payment. Some even use different processors originating from different countries per transaction such as PayPal, Amazon or Aliexpress.

                          I have the same problem with my Green Card. But I have to renew next year so I can wait for now.

                            That‘s what I got back. I entered the correct CVC though and I don‘t use rotating CVCs.

                              @Jakob#140613 Hey! I'm not using ProtonMail, but ProtonVPN and I have the same issue there, although I could add an online card in the past, it's still working and in use for payments. When I try to add a new online card I get the same error :/ Really really weird.

                                Can you try to add credits instead of upgrading your subscription? I remember I had the same problem but adding credits worked for me. After adding credits the credit card is now available for me to upgrade my subscription.

                                Whatever credits you have added will be used when you upgrade and any other amount due will be charged to your credit card (if you dont have enough credits).

                                  @J-Grey-Wolf#140631 I have tried this and adding credits work. It requires the additional 3D verification, but even after adding credits the card still gets declined when I try to add it as a payment method.

                                    I just tried again and now my payment method has been updated with the Green Card. So now it works for me.

                                      @R#140632 After adding credits my card was automatically added as a payment method. I did not have to do anything else. When upgrading I can now pick this card for payment.

                                        @J-Grey-Wolf#140634 Hmm, maybe if I try removing my old payment method and then add credits it works. Did you use an online card?