Pay and Shop Online with Your Card

Why the payment fails

When you press “pay” at a foreign store, its payment gateway asks your card's network whether it can charge you. If your card belongs to a local network, that question goes nowhere and the gateway returns a decline. It is not insufficient funds or a mistake on your part: there is simply no route.

That is why retrying usually doesn't help, nor does switching browsers or trying again later. The payment doesn't fail because of the transaction, it fails because of the card.

What a card needs for the charge to go through

Two things, and both are essential:

• Belong to an international network. Mastercard and VISA are the two that practically every payment platform in the world accepts. If the card is on one of them, the gateway knows whom to ask.
• Have available balance before attempting the payment. A debit card doesn't advance money: if the balance doesn't cover the amount, the transaction is declined just as if there were no network.

To pay online, the virtual card is enough

An online merchant never sees the plastic. What it needs are the card details, and you have those as soon as the card is activated, without waiting for any shipment.

At ACR Card the Mastercard starts exactly that way: virtual, usable from the very first moment. You look up the details on the platform where you manage the card —V1 or N09 depending on the level— from your phone, computer or tablet. The physical card is optional and is for what the virtual one can't do: the store counter and the ATM.

How to pay, step by step

Once the card is activated and has a balance, the transaction is the same as with any card:

• Check that you have enough balance for the amount. You can see it on the platform, next to your transactions.
• On the merchant's payment screen, choose to pay by card and enter the details the platform gives you.
• Confirm. If the transaction goes through, you will see it reflected in your transactions.
• If you need to pay again and the balance has run short, you make another top-up. There is no maximum number of top-ups.

International services and payments

The Master level states international payments with no amount limit, so the size of the transaction is not the restriction. The Daily level is designed for everyday spending on the international VISA network.

If you prefer to pay from your phone without entering the details every time, the Master level includes Apple Pay and Google Pay: you link the card once and pay with your phone. The Daily level does not include it today in its specification.

The balance is in dollars

The whole product is handled in USD: the minimum top-ups, the fees and the physical card amounts. If the merchant charges in another currency, we don't set the conversion.

That is why we don't publish exchange rates on this page. If you are making a specific purchase in another currency and want to know how it would work out before requesting the card, ask us and we will look at it with you.

Transaction security

The card is issued in your name, so the details you enter in a payment are yours and not a third party's. The balance is limited by definition: only what you have topped up can be spent, which on its own limits the damage of any incident.

The data you give us when applying —name, ID, email and phone— is used only to handle the creation of your card. It is detailed in the privacy policy.

We won't list here the security protocols of third parties that we don't manage ourselves. If you need to know how the card behaves under a specific merchant verification, ask us and we will tell you.

What we won't promise you

No card in the world guarantees that a specific payment will go through, and ours doesn't either:

• We don't guarantee that a specific merchant or platform will accept the charge. Each has its own rules and its own gateway.
• We don't publish a list of sites where it works. It would be a list that goes out of date on its own and that we don't control.
• We don't publish exchange rates.
• ACR Card is not a bank: there is no credit, no overdraft and no balance beyond what you top up.

If you have a specific payment in mind, message us on WhatsApp before requesting the card. Solving your case is more useful than reading a general promise.