Cannot make CC payment unless address fields are displayed

[Ferns]

I'm setting up an online shop with Woocommerce, only selling digital products, my customers are primarily in the US (I'm in Australia).

For my sales, all I need is an email address so I can send the link, and my preference would be to JUST have my customers enter that but that doesn't seem possible. 

I did some tests and found I could get a transaction to go through with Country, State, and Postcode filled in, but that would *only* work if I display ALL the address fields. As soon as I hide them again, it no longer works.

Log shows this:

Expected a string value.: verification_details.billing_contact.address_lines[1]

This even though when all fields were showing, I only filled in those three and the other fields were all empty.

So IF it's not possible to just collect email addresses,
1. How do I know what fields are required for CC transactions for different countries?

and

2. IF it's those three fields, why doesn't it work unless the *other* fields are displayed?

Thanks

[Seamus]

Hey @Ferns,

Thanks for getting in touch!

I'm not sure this info is actually editable - you'll need to get in touch with WooCommerce for this one, as they handle what appears on your website. It's possible these fields may be needed to authenticate credit card purchases too, though I'm not 100% sure. I do know different countries do have difference requirements there, so that may also play a factor in what customers need to enter when making a purchase.

[Ferns]

Thanks for the response.

You wrote:

"It's possible these fields may be needed to authenticate credit card purchases too, though I'm not 100% sure. I do know different countries do have difference requirements there, so that may also play a factor in what customers need to enter when making a purchase"

Yes to all of that but I'm assuming this information is available (this vs guessing).

What I'm after is clarity around exactly what information Square needs for CC payment processing (and how it differs per country) so I can work with it.

I expect I'm an outlier because I'm selling only digital products and don't need to collect any customer information for that, but surely this must be documented somewhere.

[Seamus]

Hey @Ferns,

To be completely honest that's not information I have available, and based on past similar requests, I've never heard of a way to change these fields.

I think the best you're going to be able to do here is ask WooCommerce if this functionality is available via their platform. The payments API they'd be connecting to via Square wouldn't be editable in this regard, so the situation is either going to be:

1) A "One Size Fits All" solution (I suspect this is the case)

2) If the payments API had different rule-sets for cards country by country then this is functionality WooCommerce would have to work with to build into their integration if they've not already

If you are a web developer and have experience using APIs you could also try going on a fact hunting mission by looking into the Developer Documentation (and support channels) and our API Reference material for more info - though you will need very specific knowledge to know how to interpret this information, which is something I unfortunately do not have!

[Ferns]

Thanks for that, though I think we're talking at cross purposes.

I'm not looking to change fields.

I'm trying to understand what fields Square needs for CC processing (and from there I have the issue that it seems to need OTHER fields visible to work, but let's put that aside for the moment).

The bare bones of my inquiry:

What fields does Square need for online cc payments per country?

(not for shipping, just for the payments to go through)

Anyone who uses Square needs to be sure to collect that information from customers in their web shops or it won't work, so I assume it's available somewhere.

Thanks for your trouble :).

[Seamus]

Hey @Ferns,

I don't actually have a list of what fields Square needs for online payments on a per-country and this is not information readily available.

If you'd like overseas customers to be able to take payments on your website you can, but I don't have any sort of breakdown of what these requirements customers need to enter country by country, nor can I confirm whether the fields are the same for each country or not (I imagine they're all very similar if not all the same). A possible way to see this would be to use a VPN to view your checkout process from different countries.

I imagine they could include some or all of:

- Name

- Card number

- Expiry
- Post / Zip Code (or equivalent)  your customer will be prompted to enter details as required.

- Full address

I don't imagine there would be much of a difference country to country, but unfortunately I don't have any more information about this to share!

[Ferns]

Okay, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it :).

[Seamus]

No worries @Ferns, sorry I couldn't get you the exact answer. Hope you have a great day 🙂