7 ms·
The reason for the 6 digits is probably linked to PCI DSS compliance where agents are allowed to view the first 2 and last 4 of stored card numbers.
by blazzar 13y ago
The reason for the 6 digits is probably linked to PCI DSS compliance where agents are allowed to view the first 2 and last 4 of stored card numbers.
- gaius 13y agoThe first digit of a credit card number identifies the type of company the issuer is, e.g. 1 is an airline, 3 is a travel agency, 4 and 5 are credit card companies, 7 is an oil company. The final digit is a checksum. Two things about this baffle me: 1) that websites feel the need to have a dropdown to identify what sort of card you have instead of just figuring it out and 2) why they need to ping it off the issuer's servers to detect you've entered an invalid number e.g. a typo.
- anthonys 13y agoI agree- there's no need to get people to choose the type of card however for 2), that's not always the case. Pretty much all cards can be validated with the Luhn algorithm in js. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20725761/validate-credit-card-number-using-luhn-algorithm http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20725761/validate-credit-...
- delinka 13y agoThe card number can be validated, that doesn't make it a valid card. You still have to ask the issuing bank whether the card is an active account, whether it has the funds for the purchase, etc
- gaius 13y agoYes - things such as two transposed digits can easily and should be trapped on the client side.
- aaronem 13y agoBack when I was doing payment code, I built several sites which didn't prompt for the card type, since (a) the first digit identifies the association [1] and (b) the processor doesn't usually care anyway, i.e., you don't need to submit a card type value along with the rest of the transaction data. Most of the clients for whom I built these sites complained about the lack of a dropdown, and were not terribly receptive to my explanations on points (a) and (b) above; their line of thinking on the matter was that people expect to see a card type dropdown, and will complain in its absence. I rather doubt that's true, but I have also never considered it really my place to argue too strenuously against a client who refuses to let me save them money, so more often not I ended up adding the dropdown anyway. [1] 3 = AmEx; 4 = Visa; 5 = Mastercard; 6 = Discover.
- aestra 13y agoYou should have given them an read only box with javascript that automatically populates it and REALLY knocked their socks off.
- talmand 13y agoDuring my time working on websites for a retail company the imagery of the credit cards accepted were considered important. They would even be on pages that just mentioned taking payments before you get to the actual input page. One reasoning is that it is a sort of reassurance, much like the stickers you see on doors of retail locations that show which cards they accept. It's a reassurance in the idea that if you're deciding if you want to make the purchase or not, that the site will have no problems in accepting the payment option you would like to use. Plus, in a strange sort of way, it implies the site is a valid on-the-level company because surely a credit card company would come down hard on a scam site for using their copyrighted visual identity. There's not much valid reasons other than it's a visual thing for customers. Although I always suggested using the method of displaying the type of card after starting the number, that goes against the reassurance thing. If a customer has two different branded credit cards, they know up front if one or both will be accepted. Otherwise they have to start typing to find out, which is work for the customer. You always want it to be easy for the customer to spend money, no second guessing.
- aaronem 13y agoAll of what you say is true, but I was referring to a dropdown or radio button set for choice of card type, and not the card type images themselves, which I always included unless the client preferred otherwise -- something I don't remember ever happening, now I think back.