Customer Support Guide
v0.1
BitPay, Inc.
https://bitpay.com
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Contacting Support
Payment Data
Common Payment Exceptions
Underpayment
Overpayment
Late Payment / “Orphan Transaction”
Refunding a Fully Paid Invoice
Payment Gateway API Troubleshooting
Revision History
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Introduction
Welcome to the world of payment processing for the bitcoin currency! This guide provides you with all the
information you need to identify, understand, and resolve many common customer support related concerns.
We understand that the processing of bitcoin payment transactions may result in customer situations that are
at first unfamiliar for many merchants. Our goal and promise to you is to provide you with world class support
for resolving support requests quickly and efficiently. We also want to provide you with the knowledge and
information that your support organization needs to quickly self diagnose the most common bitcoin payment
processing exceptions.
Contacting Support
The easiest way to contact support is to send email to:
●
[email protected]
If you have phone support please call the number you have been provided.
BitPay offers several levels of support based on the needs of your organization. Your level of support is
associated with the specific pricing plan that your organization has selected. You can identify the BitPay pricing
plan that you are currently subscribed to by accessing your merchant account and clicking the “Plan” link or by
accessing this link directly: https://bitpay.com/change­plan. Your currently selected plan is designated as the
“Current Plan” and lists the features of the plan including the type of support to which you are entitled.
Support Plan
Entitlement
Description
Bronze
Email Support
You are able to contact BitPay support via email by
sending your support request to [email protected].
You support request enters our support queue.
Silver
Email and Phone Support
All of the support features of the Bronze Support Plan
plus:
You are provided a phone number that allows you to
contact our support organization.
Gold
Priority Phone and Email Support All of the support features of the Silver Support Plan
plus:
You are provided a dedicated account manager as
your single point of contact for all interaction with
BitPay. Your phone calls and emails to support are
handled immediately.
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Payment Data
Bitcoin payment transactions processed by BitPay involve the use of certain payment data sets that are
common across many types of payment scenarios. This section lists the types of data that your support
organization is likely to encounter when resolving transaction exceptions. For easier identification, each
description includes a sample of the payment data. Pay particular attention to the length of the data string as
this will help you more readily identify the type of data.
Payment Data
Description
BitPay invoice ID
The unique id of the invoice assigned by bitpay.com.
This id is generated by the BitPay server when the customer has reached the
final step of the buying process and must pay for their items. This id is
unique across all BitPay transactions, merchants and will never be reused or
reassigned within our system to any other transaction.
Example:
●
BitPay invoice URL
4HLQHvXAG4QthbQn5Xj6FP
An https URL where the invoice can be viewed.
This URL includes the BitPay invoice ID and may be used or referred to
interchangeably with the BitPay invoice ID.
Example:
●
Bitcoin address
https://bitpay.com/invoice?id=4HLQHvXAG4QthbQn5Xj6FP
The address to which a bitcoin payment may be sent; it is a public encryption
key exchanged between the seller and the buyer.
A bitcoin address always begins with either a ‘1’ or a ‘3’. Bitcoin addresses
are generated by the holder of a bitcoin wallet. At the time a public address
is created a matching private key is created that is stored exclusively within
the holders bitcoin wallet.
Example:
●
Blockchain transaction ID
1G2bxGMWZsximRGkbFBTwQJwp9yzup4qLS
The unique id of the bitcoin transaction assigned by the bitcoin network.
When a bitcoin payment is sent to the network a globally unique transaction
id is assigned to the payment. This transaction ID is useful for discovering
the details of the transaction. See “Blockchain transaction URL” for details.
Example:
●
7ca6b34f41bfa920001d42ae66316472eb9d6034712d6b1d58a8c8e268
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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beb348
Blockchain transaction URL
An https URL where the blockchain transaction can be viewed.
The details of the payment transaction can be viewed at
https://blockchain.info. Transaction details include the following kinds of
information:
●
●
●
Transaction time
Confirmation status
Transaction fees
Example:
●
https://blockchain.info/tx/7ca6b34f41bfa920001d42ae66316472eb9d60
34712d6b1d58a8c8e268beb348
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Common Payment Exceptions
The payment experience for accepting bitcoin transactions presents business scenarios that either do not exist
or are much less prevalent than when accepting payment via other methods. This section enumerates these
scenarios and provides descriptions, causes, and business process steps for the settlement of payment
transactions that fall under these descriptions. The application of a remedy for a payment exception may be
subject to one or more business rules. These rules ensure that these remedies are applied uniformly and that
the application of the remedy resolves the payment exception without further question.
Underpayment
The purchaser sends a bitcoin payment, but the amount sent is less than the total required by the invoice.
These are not credited to your account automatically; you may choose to either accept them (in which case we
adjust the price of the invoice), or request that they be refunded back to the sender.
To credit an underpayment to the invoice and mark the invoice fully paid, we need:
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
Business Rules:
UC1. Occasionally, BitPay may be unable to associate a late payment or mark an underpaid invoice
fully paid due to the duration of time a transaction has been outstanding, shifts in exchange rates, or a
combination of these. In this scenario BitPay will refund a customer's payment to a bitcoin address
that the customer specifies, or that you provide BitPay on the customers behalf.
To refund an underpayment to the purchaser, we need:
●
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
A bitcoin address to which the purchaser would like the funds returned.
Business Rules:
None.
Overpayment
The purchaser sends a bitcoin payment, but the amount sent is greater than the total required by the invoice.
The extra payment is not credited to your account automatically; you may choose to either accept it (in which
case we credit the extra to your account), or request that the overpaid portion be refunded back to the sender.
To credit an overpayment to the invoice, we need:
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Business Rules:
None.
To refund the overpaid portion of an overpayment to the purchaser, we need:
●
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
A bitcoin address to which the purchaser would like the funds returned.
Business Rules:
None.
Late Payment / “Orphan Transaction”
The purchaser sends a bitcoin payment, but the payment does not come through until after the 15 minute
window provided by the invoice has expired. The orphan transaction is set aside until either the purchaser
requests it back, or you request it be credited to the invoice for which it was intended.
We can sometimes find a late payment if the purchaser provides the bitcoin address to which he sent the
funds.
To associate an orphan with an invoice, we need:
●
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
The blockchain transaction ID (i.e.
https://blockchain.info/tx/7ca6b34f41bfa920001d42ae66316472eb9d6034712d6b1d58a8c8e268beb34
8)
Business Rules:
L1. Occasionally, BitPay may be unable to associate a late payment or mark an underpaid invoice fully
paid due to the duration of time a transaction has been outstanding, shifts in exchange rates, or a
combination of these. In this scenario BitPay will refund a customer's payment to a bitcoin address
that the customer specifies, or that you provide BitPay on the customers behalf.
To refund a late / orphan payment to the purchaser, we need:
●
●
The blockchain transaction ID of the late payment.
A bitcoin address to which the purchaser would like the funds returned.
Business Rules:
None.
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Refunding a Fully Paid Invoice
The purchaser successfully sent a bitcoin payment of the correct amount, but you choose to provide a full or
partial refund of that payment.
To provide a refund of a fully paid invoice, we need:
●
●
●
The BitPay invoice ID or BitPay invoice URL
The amount and currency you would like to refund (i.e., 100.00 USD or 0.1366 BTC).
The bitcoin address to which the purchaser would like us to send the refund.
Business Rules:
None.
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Payment Gateway API Troubleshooting
Many of the most common problems associated with deploying the BitPay Payment Gateway API can be
solved by referring to the instructions and advice in the Troubleshooting section of the Payment Gateway API
documentation. Download the BitPay Payment Gateway API documentation from
https://bitpay.com/downloads/bitpayApi.pdf.
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Revision History
0.1
January 2014
Original Release
©2014 BITPAY, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
10