Why Was Your Card Declined on Tinder?

Tinder lists three common causes. The first is a typo, so check every letter and digit against the card. The second is the card type, because some gift cards, prepaid cards and select debit cards do not support recurring payments for subscriptions. The third is a billing address mix-up, so check that the address and zip code match. If you pay through a phone, Tinder also suggests checking which payment options the App Store or Google Play Store accepts.

This is the most common cause and the quickest to rule out.

Take the physical card and read it against what you entered, one character at a time. Card number, expiry date, security code, and the name exactly as it is printed. A swapped pair of digits or a mistyped month is enough to fail a payment, and it is easy to miss on a small phone keyboard.

If you saved the card a while ago, check the expiry date in particular. A card that worked last year may simply have run out.

A Tinder plan is a recurring payment. It renews on its own until you cancel it. Tinder says some gift cards, prepaid cards and select debit cards do not support recurring payments for subscriptions.

So a card with money on it can still be refused. The problem is not the balance. The card was never set up to be charged again and again by the same company.

If that is your situation, try a regular credit card or a standard debit card from your bank. Those are the cards most likely to accept a charge that repeats.

Tinder's third cause is a billing address mix-up.

When you pay, the address and zip code you enter are checked against the ones your bank holds for that card. If you have moved house, used an old address, or typed a zip code from memory, they may not match, and the payment fails.

Look up the billing address on your bank's app or statement and copy it exactly. Then try again.

Many men never type a card into Tinder at all. They pay through the App Store on an iPhone or the Google Play Store on Android, using whatever is saved there.

In that case the decline happens with Apple or Google, not with Tinder. Tinder suggests reviewing the payment options the App Store or Google Play Store accepts for your device. Update or replace the card in that account, and the next attempt goes through the same store.

On Tinder.com, Tinder says you can pay with cards such as Visa, MasterCard or American Express, though American Express may not be accepted in every country. PayPal is available in some locations. If one card is refused and the three checks above all pass, trying a different accepted card is a sensible test.

If the card itself was the problem, replace it in the same place you pay.

For a Tinder.com purchase, sign in on Tinder.com, open settings, scroll to Manage Account and tap Change Card. For a purchase through Apple, Google Play or PayPal, Tinder sends you to that company to update the payment method, because the card was never stored with Tinder. Once the new card is saved there, try the purchase again from the same device.

Getting a card accepted is the small problem. Getting the plan to produce dates is the one worth your attention.

a dating coach says to test anything the apps charge for, and to stop paying for it if it changes nothing. He is just as firm that refusing to pay for anything on principle costs men dates, because the apps are businesses that look after their paying members. So paying is fine. Paying for something you never check is not.

Note your matches and your dates for the few weeks after the plan starts, and change nothing else. If both rise, the plan earned its place. If they do not, remember that coach calls paid features multipliers, and multiplying zero still leaves zero. Then the fix is a clearer lead photo and an opening line about her, not a different card.