Failed transaction side effects

[mjallday]

To ease debugging card declines we at Balanced propose creating transactions in a failed state if a user attempts to debit a card.

This is the default behavior in revision 1.1 but we believe there is enough benefit in doing this for users of revision 1.0 of the API as well.

Doing so would change the behavior of the current API in one of two ways:

1. Indexing debits (GET /v1/marketplaces/MP123123/debits) would begin returning debits with a failed state whenever a 402 response is received when trying to create a debit.
2. Indexing debits (GET /v1/marketplaces/MP123123/debits) would only return debits in a failed state when explicitly queried for them. e.g. GET /v1/marketplaces/MP123123/debits?status=failed.

Implementing the first behaviour would mean that users would begin to see debits returned when there previously were none.

Implementing the second behaviour would mean that bank account debits that failed would begin to not be returned by default unless explicitly queried for.

Potentially we could opt for a 3rd behaviour, returning only failed bank account debits and hiding failed card debits but this seems (to me at least) to avoid the principle of least surprise.

[mjallday]

ping @steveklabnik @matin @mahmoudimus

[steveklabnik]

I personally vote #2, we shouldn't break compatibility.

[msherry]

What would happen on POST requests to /v1/customers/CU123/debits that generate a 402? Will we now return a 201 and a debit in state failed, or continue with 402, and require a GET to see the failure reason? What uri do I GET to see the debit that just failed?

[matin]

+1 for the third approach since it's exactly the same as the current behavior but requires a special flag to see transactions that would normally not be returned.

@steveklabnik the second approach is actually a change in current behavior.

[mjallday]

@msherry a failed POST will still generate a 402 for backwards compatibility. in the extras field of the exception we return a URI to the debit that was created.

[mahmoudimus]

@matin while I agree, who actually queries for bank account debits that have failed by an index call? our statistics show that's only a dashboard call.

[matin]

@mahmoudimus

who actually queries for bank account debits that have failed by an index call? our statistics show that's only a dashboard call.

I'm not sure how you're tracking this. If I query for all transactions, I could be filtering for failed bank account transactions on my side instead of through the API. Balanced would have no information on this.

You still make a fair point. The second approach is clean in terms of what makes sense if I was integrating today, but I've become cautious of making any changes that is different from existing behavior unless there's some benefit to the marketplace as a result. In this case, we can implement the new behavior without any changes to existing integrations.

[mjallday]

I change my stance. Option 3 is the only way to avoid changing how the API currently behaves for consumers today. It leaves a slight inconsistency but the tradeoff is no existing customer will experience a change.

[EDIT]

I would also be OK with filtering failed card debits from rev0 completely no matter what filter is specified. The dashboard runs rev1.1 so it will still see the failed card debits. This would also prevent any changes to existing behaviour for current consumers of rev 1.0.

[mjallday]

@mahmoudimus @steveklabnik @matin - I have a PR ready to roll if we're happy with option 3.

https://github.com/PoundPay/balanced/pull/271

[mjallday]

Ye Olde Deployment Notificatione Announcement

Ye, verily and with much pompt, Balanced presents a new featurette, The Failed Transaction Recordereum:

Step 1. Production of a failed credit using a test card number that doth often transpire in a unsuccessful debitation.

curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits -u ak-test-PE0kAimMqYDGzebPIHUzYwuLUM86yCxP: -d "amount=5000" -d source_uri=/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/cards/CC741HFtwai6n3f3U0wWZ2N8

{
  "status": "Payment Required",
  "category_code": "card-declined",
  "additional": "Account Frozen",
  "status_code": 402,
  "description": "R758: Account Frozen. Your request id is OHMfb7e371661e211e3a155026ba7c1aba6.",
  "category_type": "banking",
  "_uris": {},
  "request_id": "OHMfb7e371661e211e3a155026ba7c1aba6",
  "extras": {
    "uri": "/v1/marketplaces/TEST-MP5KRaRwei0JslKuwqAfgP0P/debits/WD7Ccw9l7FOTAe7O589Ab89g"
  }
}

Step 2. Querying for yonder list of failed money movements

curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits?status=failed -u ak-test-PE0kAimMqYDGzebPIHUzYwuLUM86yCxP:

{
  "first_uri": "/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits?status=failed&limit=10&offset=0",
  "_type": "page",
  "items": [
    {
      "status": "failed",
      "customer": {
...
      },
      "_type": "debit",
      "fee": null,
      "description": null,
      "_uris": {
        "refunds_uri": {
          "_type": "page",
          "key": "refunds"
        },
        "events_uri": {
          "_type": "page",
          "key": "events"
        }
      },
      "source": {
...
      },
      "created_at": "2013-12-10T21:35:02.362906Z",
      "transaction_number": "W289-905-1047",
      "events_uri": "/v1/debits/WD7dJ1YJ5fmiyaKDJJpeqnLU/events",
      "uri": "/v1/marketplaces/TEST-MP5KRaRwei0JslKuwqAfgP0P/debits/WD7dJ1YJ5fmiyaKDJJpeqnLU",
      "refunds_uri": "/v1/marketplaces/TEST-MP5KRaRwei0JslKuwqAfgP0P/debits/WD7dJ1YJ5fmiyaKDJJpeqnLU/refunds",
      "amount": 5000,
      "meta": {},
      "on_behalf_of": null,
      "appears_on_statement_as": "example.com",
      "hold": null,
      "id": "WD7dJ1YJ5fmiyaKDJJpeqnLU",
      "available_at": "2013-12-10T21:35:04.082004Z"
    }
  ],
  "previous_uri": null,
  "uri": "/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits?status=failed&limit=10&offset=0",
  "_uris": {
...
  },
  "limit": 10,
  "offset": 0,
  "total": 2,
  "next_uri": null,
  "last_uri": "/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits?status=failed&limit=10&offset=0"
}

Step 3. Ensurification that failed, money movements are not scribed whence not prompted.

curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits -u ak-test-PE0kAimMqYDGzebPIHUzYwuLUM86yCxP: | grep status

curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/customers/CU76Gzqs6TEsoBov1LIlERlw/debits      -u ak-test-PE0kAimMqYDGzebPIHUzYwuLUM86yCxP:    | grep status
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:01 --:--:--     0      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
100 48071  100 48071    0     0  38060      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 38091
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "status": "succeeded",

exitus @mjallday

[mahmoudimus]

Bravo ol' chap! Bravo!

[matin]

@mjallday what about information on why the transaction failed in the debit that was created?

[mahmoudimus]

@matin second iteration is to bubble up the reasons - this is cehduled for this sprint

[mjallday]

@matin balanced/balanced-dashboard#800

[matin]

😄