[Wishlist] Authenticating payment cards with a small charge to prevent failed payments from burner cards on free trials

Post author
Chukwudi

Hi there,

I'm getting a ton of failed payments because people are using burner cards to sign up to my free trial - the cards clearly don't have enough funds to pay for the subscription when the free trial ends.

I'm therefore wanting to setup some sort of authenticate and capture system where we take a very small (say $0.01) payment from the users card to prove they are legitimate etc.

Is there a way to do this via memberstack? As memberstack is currently hosting my Stripe paywall so I'm unable to edit the code for the paywall..

I'd also like to setup some AB testing flows for different payment funnels but it gets a bit techy.

Comments

2 comments

  • Comment author
    Duncan from Memberstack

    This is a great idea! I'm unaware of a solution, but will post here if I find something. 

    0
  • Comment author
    Ramkumar T

    Have you considered changing your pricing structure from a free trial to a "$1 for the first month" offer?

    Even a tiny upfront charge (like $1 or $0.99) will automatically filter out the vast majority of burner cards since they typically don't have any real funds on them. The psychological experience for legitimate users is almost identical to a free trial, but you get immediate card validation.

    This approach has a few benefits:

    • No custom code or technical setup required - just change your pricing in Memberstack/Stripe
    • Proven to eliminate 90%+ of fraudulent signups in my experience
    • Barely affects conversion rates since $1 feels like "basically free" to real customers
    • You actually make a tiny bit of revenue from trial users

    You could even refund the $1 if they cancel within the first week to make it feel even more risk-free for legitimate users.

    This won't help with A/B testing different payment funnels (that's a separate technical challenge), but it should solve your burner card problem immediately without any development work.

    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.