#236 Your Payment Processor Is Silently Blocking Sales

#236 Your Payment Processor Is Silently Blocking Sales

From Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis by Maria Sparagis

May 21, 2026 · 13 min · Episode 236

About this episode

Maria discusses how AI fraud scoring systems may be blocking legitimate sales and how to adjust settings to improve approval rates.

AI fraud scoring systems may be silently declining your transactions without you realizing it. Most online businesses see higher failed payments or lower conversion rates and assume it’s ads, checkout, or pricing — but have you checked if an AI fraud scoring system is to blame? Risk engine and automated payment gateway settings may be blocking legitimate customer orders. These systems are designed to prevent losses, not maximize revenue, which leads to false declines. In this episode, Maria breaks down how to spot when AI fraud tools are impacting your payments, and shows you which fraud settings to adjust so they actually fit your business model instead of generic default rules. You’ll learn how to recognize false decline patterns, what’s triggering them, and how to improve approval rates without increasing fraud risk: How to identify which Fraud AI mechanisms are active in your gateway How to know if Fraud AI is working against you How to adjust your Fraud AI scoring filters How to test your new settings Top fixes every merchant needs to know If you’re using Stripe, Shopify, or any payment gateway and seeing unexplained declines or high payment failure rates, this is likely…

People in this episode

Host: Maria Sparagis

Topics covered

  • payment processing
  • AI fraud scoring
  • conversion rates
  • false declines
  • e-commerce
  • fraud prevention

Keywords

  • payment processor
  • fraud scoring
  • transaction decline
  • conversion optimization
  • e-commerce sales
  • payment gateway
  • false decline patterns

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stripe, Shopify

More episodes of Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Click & Convert with Maria Sparagis podcast page.