Funny story, I once did that with an old ISP when I had no internet for over a week, I asked to speak to some Indian guy's manager and he told me he'd go get his manager... I hear muffled voices in the background ( Obviously they didn't know how to use hold) and the same guy came back on to the phone and said "I am the manager now " cue not getting anywhere for half an hour.
thats better than what happened to me when using stripe. stripe declined my main credit card every time i tried to put it in. i called discover and they said 'we have no record of ever declining anything recently'. i ended up giving up and using paypal because i was tired of that.
Hmm. Depends on the reason they're being declined. If it's anything like my experience, your bank may have decided that your buying something internationally, from Canada no less, is highly suspect and needs to be declined without warning. Further attempts may enrage them into locking your card (accepting that it might be a genuine transaction, and that they're in the wrong, is a bridge too far for most financial institutions). Best bet IMO is call the bank behind your preferred card, ask them why the transaction has been declined and make sure they're not the ones blocking it. Or enlist their help in getting it to work, if it's one of those rare banks that is actually, y'know, helpful. Stripe seems to be the thing that set off warning bells for mine. They didn't recognise it as a trusted payment facilitator, at least at the time.
