Can Authorize.net Just Check Card Information?

[lbohen]

We currently charge credit cards manually just prior to shipping to our customer.

Often a credit card will not go through because of an incorrect expiration date or security code. We send an email to get correct information and the order is held up until we do. This also causes extra administration time.

In that many orders change between the time a customer places them and when we ship them, I am reluctant to use Authorize.net which I understand checks the credit card information during the online order process and gets an authorization code.

I would like to know if I could have authorize.net check the credit card information during the online order process, but NOT get authorization. I believe authorization freezes funds equal to the amount of the customer's order.

[loren_d_c]

I would like to know if I could have authorize.net check the credit card information during the online order process, but NOT get authorization.

No, at least not via ShopSite. The options in ShopSite for Authorize.net are to either just authorize (put a hold on) the funds at the time of the order, or to run it as a sale (both authorize and capture the funds) at the time of the sale.

You may want to check with Authorize.net, though, and ask what their capabilities are as far as modifying authorized transactions via their web terminal interface. It may not be as big a deal as you think to log into their system and increase or reduce the amount of an authorized transaction (or cancel it and run a new transaction).

-Loren