Which check actually fired
Three run in sequence. You're told nothing about which one stopped you.
The store compares the address you typed against the one your card issuer holds. A foreign billing address usually has no US record to match at all — so it can't pass, rather than merely failing.
The leading digits of a card number identify the issuing bank and its country. Some US merchants refuse foreign-issued cards outright, before any payment is attempted.
An unfamiliar cross-border merchant on a card that normally shops at home is exactly the pattern fraud systems are built to stop. Your bank may decline it without telling the store why.
Any one of these is survivable. It's the stack that defeats people — which is why fixing them one at a time so rarely works.
Won't help
- A VPN. Checks 01 and 02 read the card, not your IP.
- A prepaid or virtual "US" card. Prepaid ranges are identifiable, many merchants decline them, and it still needs a real US billing address on file. When it does go through, review often reverses it days later.
- Trying again tomorrow. The checks are deterministic.
Works
- A genuinely US purchase. US card, US billing address, US delivery. Nothing foreign for the checks to catch.
- A friend in the US who buys it and posts it on. That's a forwarding service, done by hand.
- Us doing the same thing — $14.99 plus the carrier's actual rate.
What we are, plainly
A shopper in the US buys the item with a US card at a US address, and it's forwarded to you with the value declared honestly. Booking, payment and shipping are governed by our terms and shipping policy.
Duty is yours, and we're not your lawyers
You will see forwarders answer "is this legal?" with a confident yes and a tidy description of themselves as the legal buyer, reselling to you. We won't. How a purchasing arrangement is characterised has real tax and customs consequences, it varies by your country, and a marketing page is the wrong place to assert a legal conclusion.
What we can tell you without hedging: customs duties and import taxes are charged to you by your own country, they are not refundable by us because we never receive that money, and we declare honest values on every parcel. That's in our shipping policy. If your situation is unusual — commercial quantities, restricted goods, resale — get advice from someone qualified to give it.
What it lands at
The declined price was never the real price.
Tick the box above if you want us to pay the store first and settle with you afterwards. Leave it unticked if you'll pre-fund your Selectido wallet.
Rates from the same dataset as our shipping matrix. Courier cost is estimated from weight and destination; you're invoiced the carrier's actual rate.
The old version of this page put a $100 item at "$210–230 all-in." It counted live shopping, forwarding and courier — and left out both US sales tax and your country's duty. For a $100 item into most destinations the duty is small or zero. For a $900 one it very much isn't. Run your own number above.
How you pay us
Through Stripe: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, Google Pay, plus iDEAL and SEPA in Europe. Also PayPal, and Wise for bank transfer. If you need a local method you don't see listed, ask before you order — we'd rather say no upfront than take money we can't process.
Send us the decline
The store, the item, your country. We'll tell you which check you most likely hit and what the item lands at — whether or not you buy through us.
Questions
Three checks run, and any one of them can stop the payment. Address verification compares the billing address you typed to what your card issuer holds — a non-US address usually has nothing to match. The card number's leading digits identify the issuing bank and its country, and some US merchants refuse cards issued abroad. And your own bank may block an unfamiliar cross-border charge. The word 'declined' does not tell you which of the three fired.
No. Address verification and issuer-country checks read the card, not your IP address. Changing where you appear to be browsing from does not change where your card was issued or what billing address your bank holds for you.
It often fails, and when it does not fail it frequently unravels later. Prepaid card ranges are identifiable, many merchants decline them outright, and a prepaid card combined with an international delivery is a pattern that manual review tends to reverse days after the order is confirmed. It also still has to pass address verification against a real US billing address on file.
Sometimes. It fails when the billing address and the shipping address disagree, which many higher-value retailers treat as a review trigger on a first order. If your friend ships it to their own home and then posts it on to you, that generally works — they are simply doing by hand what a forwarding service does.
With a US-issued card at our US address. Nothing about the transaction is foreign, so none of the three checks have anything to catch. You then pay us through Stripe with a card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, iDEAL or SEPA, or through PayPal or Wise.
You are. Customs duties and import taxes are assessed by your country against you as the person receiving the goods, and they are not refundable by us because we never receive that money. This is set out in our shipping policy. We declare the honest value on every parcel, and the calculator on this page exists so the number does not surprise you.
The item price, plus US sales tax where we buy, plus your country's import duty and VAT if the value is above your de-minimis threshold, plus actual carrier shipping, plus a $14.99 forwarding fee. Live video shopping, if you want to watch the purchase happen, is $75 per hour with 15% off two or more hours. If you have not pre-funded your Selectido wallet and we pay the store on your behalf, we add a 5% advance fee calculated on the item price plus US sales tax — not on duty, VAT or shipping. Book a live video session and there is no advance fee, because you fund the wallet and your shopper spends from it.
Selectido is an independent shopping and package-forwarding service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, authorised by, or a partner of any retailer, card network, bank or payment provider named on this page. Their names are used only to describe checkout problems our customers report to us. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice. Customs duties and import taxes are the customer's responsibility, as set out in our shipping policy. Duty and tax figures are planning estimates, not a customs ruling.