Stripe is not declining any cards in test mode

Question

I'm using Stripe with Laravel 5.1 and I have everything working except that when I enter a test card number that should be declined, I receive no errors; that is, resonse.errors never exists, even when it should.

I am receiving a token back as if everything went through just fine (example: tok_16Y3wFAMxhd2ngVpHnky8VWX)

The stripeResponseHandler() function is not returning errors in the response no matter what test card I use. Here is the code in question:

var PublishableKey = 'pk_test_Ed0bCarBWsgCXGBtjEnFeBVJ'; // Replace with your API publishable key
Stripe.setPublishableKey(PublishableKey);

/* Create token */
var expiry = $form.find('[name=cardExpiry]').payment('cardExpiryVal');
var ccData = {
    number: $form.find('[name=cardNumber]').val().replace(/\s/g, ''),
    cvc: $form.find('[name=cardCVC]').val(),
    exp_month: expiry.month,
    exp_year: expiry.year
};

Stripe.card.createToken(ccData, function stripeResponseHandler(status, response) {
    console.log(status);
    if (response.error) {
        /* Visual feedback */
        $form.find('[type=submit]').html('Please Try Again');
        /* Show Stripe errors on the form */
        $form.find('.payment-errors').text(response.error.message);
        $form.find('.payment-errors').closest('.row').show();
    } else {
        /* Visual feedback */
        $form.find('[type=submit]').html('Processing <i class="fa fa-spinner fa-pulse"></i>');
        /* Hide Stripe errors on the form */
        $form.find('.payment-errors').closest('.row').hide();
        $form.find('.payment-errors').text("");
        // response contains id and card, which contains additional card details
        console.log(response.id);
        console.log(response.card);
        var token = response.id;
        var email = $form.find('[name=email]').val();
        var formToken = $form.find('[name=_token]').val();
        console.log(email);
        // AJAX - you would send 'token' to your server here.
        console.log(token);
        $.post('/testing', {
            _token: formToken,
            token: token,
            email: email
        }, function (data) {
            console.log(data);
        })
            // Assign handlers immediately after making the request,
            .done(function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
                //console.log(data);
                $form.find('[type=submit]').html('Subscription Successful <i class="fa fa-check"></i>').prop('disabled', true);
            })
            .fail(function (jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
                $form.find('[type=submit]').html('There was a problem').removeClass('success').addClass('error');
                /* Show Stripe errors on the form */
                $form.find('.payment-errors').text('Try refreshing the page and trying again.');
                $form.find('.payment-errors').closest('.row').show();
            });
    }
});

The if (response.error) never fires, even though the card should be declined. I can't understand what I'm doing wrong here that is causing this issue.

I've tried all the test card numbers that should decline from the Stripe docs, but none of them return a response with errors.

Please help me out. Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

When you use Stripe.js, Stripe will only verify that the card details look correct and they don't contact the bank at that point. This means that they ensure the card number passes the Luhn Check, that the expiration date is a valid date in the future and that the CVC is a 3-digits (or 4-digits for Amex) number.

It that's the case, the token tok_XXX is created successfully and you can send it to your server. The card would then be declined server-side when you add try to charge it. It would also be declined when you create a customer as Stripe will run a $0 or $1 authorization on the card to make sure it's valid and accepted by the bank.