Credit Card is Declined

Unfortunately, no. This is a shortcoming of iTunes. Short of opening a second, you just have to wait. Took them 72 hours to fix my issue. 😟

Well guys I live in Mexico and got my iPad in LA, from the moment I sync and set it up the problem began, so like many others I can't purchase or update my apps, the message I get is that my security code is not valid.
So it is happening also in Mexico not only in the States, riversen do you have any suggestion?

Unfortunately, no. Email them and wait. This is perhaps the worst part of Apple. Too bad that they don't always respond in 24 hours. When this same thing happened to me, I received an email in about 28 hours that they got my email (sent in5 or 6). It took 72 hours for them to get back to me. I went to the apple store but they only referred me to the link I posted above. Even as a business customer this stunk and still does.

TY riversen I just sent them a mail, just have to wait, thank's again, if I get this one solve, for sure I'll will post it here.

has anyone have tried to create a new account? maybe it could work, who knows

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I've gotten no where with tech support. I've tried creating an account with a US Credit card, no credit card, Itunes gift card, paypal, and all get the same response "credit card declined". This is the most restrictive system I have ever seen. It doesn't work right and the best I got from tech support is to uninstall itunes and reinstall it on my pc.

I don't understand why I can't download free apps from the US with a Qatar account. The app is free!

I also don't understand why the Qatar ITunes store is so bad. Ibooks is just as bad--almost no books except free classics!! What is the problem? Doesn't the country want to develop reading skills?? Why is it so restrictive??

I'm thinking of returning the Ipad because it's almost unusable for the the ITunes, Apps and Ibooks functions--yet there's no information telling the consumer how limited the store is, how you can't buy from another country's store and how you can't create an account without a credit card or use ITunes gift cards for payment!!

I find this highly unacceptable that this problem still hasn't been resolved. I have been waiting since October hoping apple would resolve this issue by now. I find it so restrictive that the apps that I PURCHASED and which are legally mine, are no longer under my control or worse. It has gotten to the point where I am no longer able to communicate with my loved ones due to my iPad software being outdated. You may ask, why can't I just email? Well... It is because I am using a private SMS phone messaging system to contact people via their phone numbers. I don't have cell phone service right now to SMS with, so this program text now is a godsend.... Except it doesn't work becaus apple needs their pretty penny first. This is absolutely ridiculous.

I assume you did do the email to customer service that I noted above. Though completely unacceptable, 72 hours seems to be the worst average case scenario if you did. This was my experience. Alas, I have seen countless people posting here thinking that this would fix the issue. Nothing happens here! You have to email iTunes customer service. There is NO phone number or IM to reach them at all. This is the ONLY way to contact them, which I think is poor and hope they will reconsider.

well im getting this stupid error and i tried almost all of my family members credit cards 😀

"please contact iTunes support to complete this transaction."

and i hate it i cant buy or even create an account because of this stupid error
if someone know how to resolve this let me know please
and i have contacted the support and waiting for their reply now

The bad news... you have to wait as Apple has no escalation process (something I believe they need to fix to support everyone, especially the up and coming business customers). Sorry, but this is all that Apple has and I do not like it either.

This issue just happened to me. Last week, it was fine. I could purchase a couple of apps and stuff and put them on my iPhone. Then yesterday, the stupid "Credit card is declined" issue came up. Why, Apple!? It was perfectly fine last week! Why the sudden decline?

I have been working with iTunes support for over a week and they are unable to resolve this issue for me, even though I have done everything they suggested and also told them about what I have read on the various forums about this. If it was as easy as removing a few unwanted restrictions I'm sure they would have looked at that when it was specifically mentioned as one possible solution.

If anyone get this resolved please be sure to post back!

Same happened to me.
Been emailing with support, or the lack thereof.
They ask me to make sure all data is okay (it is). The card is fine. The account into is fine. I literally spent hundreds and hundreds of Euros with it. And now: declined. For no obvious reason.

Still not solved.
Horribly annoyed to be honest. And I'm putting it mildly to stay polite.

I've been experiencing this issue since it began back in summer 2010 and have had problems purchasing apps on all 10 of our apple devices, appletv,ipods,iphones and ipads. Sometimes I'll get lucky and it will accept my credit info when entered directly on one of the devices but only about 2% of the time.

Back in November I dug out a laptop which I have not used in over a year and installed is an older version of iTunes, not sure what version off hand but its at least 1.5 years old. Using this copy of itunes to update my credit info works 100% of the time, never had an issue so far. This is the solution I would recommend to people if of course they have access to an older copy of iTunes. If you do find one installed on a computer make sure you don't accidentally update it 🙂 obviously the problem exists in the newer releases of iTunes.

I use gift credit cards for iTunes and have changed credit info dozens and dozens of times on numerous accounts so i would say the older itunes solution has been well tested and a proven workaround.

Cheers

I work in the Payments Industry and the reason many (and by many I mean like 90%) card declines are because of banks restricting payments from international sources.

For example if you have a Visa Card issued from a Mexican Bank and you try to use your card online to make a purchase from and IPA that is in the United States the bank will automatically decline the card based on geographic location. Also many international banks simply do not wish to commerce with foreign entities due to payment complications and interchanges fees which is another reason some international banks will automatically decline transactions.

The list of reasons goes on and on...

Thank's for your comment, but one thing does no make sense to me, why after over 2 years of using my Mexican VISA card on many sites including the APPLE store sudenly there is where I can't use it anymore?, not accepting the security code, and if I use it on E'BAY or AMAZON or any other place to pay with my card don't have any problem, it is like using it to pay Hotel, rental car, restaurant when I travel, isn't it?

For what I've heard everything has to do with using the latest version of iTunes, that's where many people agrees with.