If you experience difficulties or receive a payment failure error message when you attempt to purchase a subscription term, review the following causes:
Common Causes of Failure
- Incompatible card type: Private Internet Access (PIA) accepts all kinds of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and JCB, including prepaid cards.
- Information entered incorrectly: Ensure you enter all billing information for the card correctly, as even a single error causes the transaction to fail.
- Prepaid card registration: If you use a prepaid card, ensure you register it with the issuer for at least 24 hours. Enter the registered address into the PIA billing system when you sign up.
- Bank has incorrect information: Ensure the bank or card issuer has the same information on file that you enter. A single error causes the transaction to fail.
- Autofill or pasting text: The credit card number requires the format with spacing between groups of digits as it appears on the card. Manual entry handles this automatically. Because autofill or pasting can bypass this formatting and cause the entry to fail, temporarily disable autofill in your browser.
Failures After Submission
If the error occurs after you submit the payment, the following are the most likely causes:
- VPN or proxy use: If the IP address tied to the payment is associated with a VPN or proxy service, this may cause the system to flag the transaction. This may block the email address from further payments.
- Payment interference by a financial institution: Many credit card services delay payment for processing as an anti-fraud feature. Such delays cause payment failure because the PIA billing system cannot accept delayed credit card payments. Instruct your bank to allow charges to go through without any delay for these transactions to succeed.
- Insufficient funds: Double-check that your card balance covers the necessary purchase cost. Note that pricing is in US dollars, and currency exchange fees by your card provider apply.
- PayPal or Amazon accounts: If none of the above apply, consider using the card to fund a new PayPal or Amazon-based account. Note that PayPal does not accept prepaid credit cards for subscription purposes that do not allow registration of a full mailing address.
If you continue to experience issues with purchasing a subscription, please try another payment method or contact us for further assistance.