My customer can't pay — declined card or expired checkout

A customer is trying to book, the payment does not go through, and quite possibly they are standing in front of you right now. This page explains what is happening on their screen, what Rentalbuddy does with the half-finished booking, and how to get the customer paid and on the water anyway.

If you just need the rescue: jump to What to do with the customer standing there below.

What the customer sees at the payment step

When the customer confirms their cart, Rentalbuddy reserves the equipment for them and opens the payment step. Depending on your Payment option setting, that step is either inside the booking window on your website or on a separate Rentalbuddy payment page (see Rentalbuddy or Stripe — where do I go for what?).

At the top of the payment step is a countdown labelled Finish in:, counting down from about seven minutes in minutes and seconds. That is how long the equipment is held for them while they pay.

Inside the payment form itself, everything — the card fields, the pay button, and any error messages — comes from Stripe:

• If the card is declined, Stripe shows the decline message right in the form. The booking is not lost: the customer can correct the card number, try another card, or pick another payment method, as long as the countdown is still running.
• If the countdown reaches 00:00, the payment step closes and the customer is put back on the cart step. Their reservation has expired.
• If they come back later through an old payment link, they see either "Payment failed, the transaction has expired. Please close the window and try again." or their restored cart with the message "Your payment failed, please try again" — they can then start a fresh attempt.

The seven-minute hold, and what expiry does

The moment a customer proceeds to payment, Rentalbuddy creates the booking with payment status Pending. That pending booking is what holds the equipment so nobody else can book it out from under them mid-payment.

If no successful payment arrives within about seven minutes, the pending booking is expired automatically:

• The booking is marked as cancelled, and its payment status becomes Expired.
• The equipment is released, so the time slot is immediately bookable again — by this customer or anyone else.
• No money has moved. An expired checkout never charges the customer.

Two practical consequences:

• An abandoned checkout blocks a unit for at most about seven minutes. If a slot looks mysteriously taken right after a failed attempt, wait a few minutes and it frees itself.
• A failed attempt leaves a trace. The cancelled booking with payment status Expired stays visible under Bookings (include cancelled bookings in your filters), so you can confirm the customer really did try.

Why the card was declined

Rentalbuddy does not decline anyone — the decision is made by Stripe and, most of the time, by the customer's own bank. The common reasons, roughly in order of how often they come up:

What happened	What to tell the customer
Authentication (3D Secure) failed or was abandoned	Their bank asked them to approve the payment — usually in their banking app. Ask them to retry and complete the approval step. Very common with European cards.
The bank declined the charge	Only their bank knows why — often insufficient funds, a blocked card, or the bank being suspicious of an online charge (foreign cards especially). They should contact their bank or try another card.
Expired or mistyped card details	Ask them to re-enter the details carefully, or use another card. This includes an expired card saved in Stripe's Link — they can enter the card manually instead.
The countdown ran out	Not a decline at all — they were too slow, often because a bank-app approval stalled. Just start again; the equipment was released.

Be straight with customers about the limits here: neither you nor Rentalbuddy can see why a bank said no, and nobody can override a bank's decline. Retrying with another card or method is almost always the fastest fix.

Where to check what actually happened

1. Open the booking under Bookings (include cancelled bookings if you don't see it). The payment status tells you the outcome at a glance: Paid, Partially paid, Unpaid, Pending, Refunded, Expired or Failed. A customer who "couldn't pay" usually left an Expired booking — or no completed booking at all.
2. For the decline reason itself, go to your Stripe Dashboard. Successful and attempted card payments appear under Payments, with the decline code and the 3D Secure outcome on the payment's detail page. If the booking got as far as a payment, its Payment ID on the booking's Payment list is the identifier to search for in Stripe.
3. If there is nothing in Stripe either, the customer never got past the payment form — typically an abandoned or timed-out checkout rather than a decline.

Rentalbuddy only ever learns the outcome — paid or not paid. The diagnosis of a decline always lives in Stripe.

What to do with the customer standing there

Option 1 — let them retry. Fastest when the problem was 3D Secure or a typo. Ask them to book again, keep their banking app open for the approval, or use a different card or payment method. The failed attempt does not block anything for more than a few minutes.

Option 2 — take over and book it for them. Create the booking yourself in the admin (see Edit, move or cancel a booking for creating manual bookings), then take payment on the booking with Add payment:

1. Open the booking and press Add payment.
2. Enter the Amount — the dialog shows the Amount left to pay.
3. Under Payment method:, pick one of:
   • Payment link (Stripe) — "Payment link is sent to the customer's email". The customer pays online on their own phone, and the payment lands on the booking like a normal Stripe payment. Good when the card works but the checkout window kept timing out.
   • Manual — you took the money yourself. Pick the Payment type (Pay On Site, Manual Swish, Manual Card Payment, Manual Invoice), and add a note if you want.
4. Press Register Payment.

A manual payment records money you collected — cash, your own card terminal, your own Swish. Rentalbuddy does not move any money for manual payments; it just keeps the booking's figures right.

Option 3 — the payment actually went through but the window closed. If the customer paid at the very last moment and the confirmation never appeared, check the booking list before charging them again: if the payment succeeded, the booking shows Paid. When in doubt, check the payment in the Stripe Dashboard before taking money a second time.

Quick answers

"Was my customer charged for the failed attempt?" No. An expired or declined checkout takes no money. If the customer sees a reservation on their bank statement, that is their bank showing a pending authorisation that was never captured — it disappears on its own.

"How long does an abandoned checkout block the equipment?" About seven minutes from when the customer entered the payment step. Then the booking expires and the slot is released automatically.

"Can I see why the card was declined?" Not in Rentalbuddy. If the attempt reached Stripe, the decline code is on the payment in your Stripe Dashboard. If not even Stripe has it, the customer never submitted a payment.

"The same customer fails every time." That points at their card or bank, not at your setup — especially if other customers pay fine. Offer the Payment link by email or a Manual payment, and suggest they take it up with their bank.

"Payments fail for everyone." That is not a customer problem — check your Stripe connection under Settings → Payments, and see Rentalbuddy or Stripe — where do I go for what?.

If none of this helped

Contact support with the booking number — or, if no booking was created, the customer's name and roughly when they tried — and say what the customer saw at the payment step. A screenshot of the error message from the customer helps a lot. That is usually enough to trace the attempt.