Expiry Date Definition in Business
10 Answers 10
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:40
rjziirjzii
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If you are writing a site which takes credit card numbers for payment:
- You should probably be as permissive as possible, so that if it does expire, you allow the credit card company to catch it. So, allow it until the last second of the last day of the month.
- Don't write your own credit card processing code. If^H^HWhen you write a bug, someone will lose real money. We all make mistakes, just don't make decisions that turn your mistakes into catastrophes.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:40
Christian OudardChristian Oudard
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For the uninitaited, what does
If^H^HWhenexpand to mean? :sJan 31 '14 at 18:58
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^His a way of representing the backspace control code.Feb 1 '14 at 11:20
Have a look on one of your own credit cards. It'll have some text like EXPIRES END or VALID THRU above the date. So the card expires at the end of the given month.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:34
Dave WebbDave Webb
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haha...good point. i never realized that it was so explicate myself!
Sep 10 '08 at 13:37
In my experience, it has expired at the end of that month. That is based on the fact that I can use it during that month, and that month is when my bank sends a new one.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:32
According to Visa's "Card Acceptance and Chargeback Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants"; "Good Thru" (or "Valid Thru") Date is the expiration date of the card:
A card is valid through the last day of the month shown, (e .g ., if the Good Thru date is 03/12,the card is valid through March 31, 2012 and expires on April 1, 2012 .)
It is located below the embossed account number. If the current transaction date is after the "Good Thru" date, the card has expired.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:48
Jack SnipesJack Snipes
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+1 For visa.com source. Thanks for the edit also Royce Williams (Much better to have the quote in the answer, with a link to the source).
Jan 31 '14 at 19:01
I process a lot of credit card transaction at work, and I can tell you that the expiry date is inclusive.
Also, I agree with Gorgapor. Don't write your own processing code. They are some good tools out there for credit card processing. Here we have been using Monetra for 3 years and it does a pretty decent job at it.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:39
Eric HogueEric Hogue
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lots of big companies dont even use your expiration date anymore because it causes auto-renewal of payments to be lost when cards are issued with new expiration dates and the same account number. This has been a huge problem in the service industry, so these companies have cornered the card issuers into processing payments w/o expiration dates to avoid this pitfall. Not many people know about this yet, so not all companies use this practice.
answered Aug 5 '09 at 2:46
How do time zones factor in this analysis. Does a card expire in New York before California? Does it depend on the billing or shipping addresses?
answered Apr 14 '15 at 7:46
I had a Automated Billing setup online and the credit card said it say good Thru 10/09, but the card was rejected the first week in October and again the next week. Each time it was rejected it cost me a $10 fee. Don't assume it good thru the end of the month if you have automatic billing setup.
answered Oct 26 '09 at 15:07
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I would file a complaint/bug with the payee or the automated billing provider. One or both of them are not properly interpreting the guidelines.
Dec 6 '13 at 2:54
In your example a credit card is expired on 6/2008.
Without knowing what you are doing I cannot say definitively you should not be validating ahead of time but be aware that sometimes business rules defy all logic.
For example, where I used to work they often did not process a card at all or would continue on transaction failure simply so they could contact the customer and get a different card.
answered Sep 10 '08 at 13:45
FloryFlory
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Expiry Date Definition in Business
Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54037/credit-card-expiration-dates-inclusive-or-exclusive
from @rob below: I would have to double check, but I think it applies more to transactions that haven't cleared yet as opposed to new purchases. Since you can use the card through the end of the month, their might be some transactions that are still pending when the physical card expires.
Mar 5 '10 at 19:02
@Coronatus - The site that I got the original quote from seems to have changed the link, but I think they meant for that to say "after the first day of the next month."
Aug 28 '10 at 18:01
Thankfully, I had 1 credit card which actually printed the full date (ie: the last day of the month). I still had to wonder whether it worked for the entirety of the last day, but it was at least useful.
Oct 2 '10 at 6:06
""after the first day of the next month."" would mean that the first day itself would be considered OK, which is probably wrong.
Apr 30 '13 at 11:06
@donbright - I've updated the quote with some additional commentary. Since it is a direct quote I'm assuming that they meant the first day of the next month and not the last day of the next month. From a legal standpoint, I seem to recall that that would mean that the card would expire exactly at midnight of the the last day in the expiration month.
Apr 30 '13 at 12:01