Although Visa, Mastercard, Discover and AMEX gift cards are accepted online, in stores and just about anywhere these major brand debit cards are accepted, sometimes people have difficulties using their bank-issued gift cards online. If you are entering the gift card into the correct field on the website, then it is possible the gift card is being rejected for another reason.

In addition to this list of things to try if your Visa gift card is not working, the most common reasons gift cards decline online are listed below:

For security measures, some gift card sellers require the recipient to activate the card before it can be used. Though stores often activate gift cards at the cash register, online gift card sellers generally require the recipient to activate the card once it is received in the mail or via email. If your gift card does not work online, check to see if it needs to be activated or registered before use.

If you have a Visa gift card or Mastercard gift card from Giftcards.com, activate your card here.

Registration usually involves linking a name and billing address to the prepaid card. Though you generally are not required to register a gift card in order to use it in stores or restaurants, the process is fairly important if you intend to use the gift card online.

To make it harder to use a stolen credit card online, many websites use a procedure called Address Verification System (AVS) to ensure the card number being used for payment matches the billing address on file with the bank. Since the Visa gift card number is entered into the same field used for a Visa credit card, the website will look for an AVS match even though it is less applicable to a gift card payment.

Registering the gift card allows you to update the address linked to the card. If the system will not let you update the information, you may at least be able to see what generic name and address has been associated with the card already.

If you have a Visa gift card or Mastercard gift card from Giftcards.com, activate your card and then look for a second step to “register” the card as well.

Gift cards ordered from Giftcards.com are usable as soon as the card is registered. But some drug stores and gas stations sell gift cards that are not usable for a specified waiting period (e.g. 48 hours).

Because thieves sometimes use stolen credit cards to buy gift cards, the waiting period gives banks, stores and victims a moment to detect and report compromised cards. If the theft is reported before the gift cards are used, the gift cards can be cancelled before the funds are depleted.

If you purchased a gift card at a store and try to use it immediately, but find that the card doesn’t work, check the receipt or gift card packaging to see if a waiting period is specified.

At Giftcards.com, the most common reason online transactions decline is that the card does not have enough money on it to cover the purchase. Though people generally understand this concept, online shopping is a little different than in-store shopping. If you handed a Visa gift card to a cashier and knew it did not cover the full amount of the purchase, you could expect the system to use the card balance and then have the cashier ask you for a second form of payment. Since most websites cannot handle a split tender transaction as described above, the gift card is simply declined.

I’ll show you my trick for getting a gift card to work in this situation. Read my post on gift card hacks.

If you have a Visa gift card or Mastercard gift card from Giftcards.com, you can check the balance of your Visa gift card and review previous transactions as well.

Every time you swipe or enter your Visa gift card number into a payment system (online or in person), the system checks to see if the card has sufficient funds to complete the transaction. During this authorization check, the system will place a “hold” on the funds needed for the purchase. If the transaction is cancelled or later declined, then the pending amount (or “hold”) is released. If the transaction is completed, then the pending amount is finalized (or “cleared”) and the card balance is reduced by the dollar amount of the final purchase.

Sometimes holds are not released immediately–it can take several hours or several days to remove a pending charge depending on how each merchant system works. During that time, your gift card may decline if pending charges are tying up a portion of the gift card balance that you know should be available.

If your card is not working and pending charges are still affecting the card balance, wait a few days and try again. If you want to understand the process more, here’s an article on why it takes so long for charges to clear.

Visa gift cards issued in the United States must be used in the United States. That requirement includes websites too. If you are trying to make a purchase on a website or with a business that is outside of the country, the transaction will decline.

Here’s a post on why gift cards will not work outside of the U.S. and what your alternatives are if you need one that does.

Some websites will not allow prepaid cards to be used for subscription services or any type of recurring payment such as dating sites, cell phone services or utility bills. You may be able to use these cards for one-time payments, but not for continued use.

If online bill payment is not working with a gift card, you might try calling the company to see if the card will word over the phone.

Though you are simply trying to use your card, if the website has gift card transactions coded as a “cash” transaction, your card may decline.

To prohibit money laundering, any gift card transaction that is classified as a “quasi cash” merchant (meaning the business provides a service where a payment can be converted into cash), could be problematic.

Though PayPal recently announced that you can link a gift card to a PayPal account, it will not work with gift cards issued from Giftcards.com.

Visa and other bank-issued gift cards may decline if you are trying to the cards to pay for illegal or ill-advised products or services. At Giftcards.com, for example, Visa gift cards cannot be used on online gambling sites or adult websites.

In frustration, some customers accidentally get their cards locked because they try too many things too quickly. For example, they might do a balance check, then try to use the card, then try to use it on another website, then check the balance again and then try to use the card again. Every time the card declines, they try something else.

Though the actions are normal for someone just trying to get a gift card to work, they also mimic the actions thieves take when they buy gift cards with stolen credit cards–impatiently trying to use the cards as quickly as possible.

If you accidentally get your gift card locked, contact the issuing company listed on the back of the gift card.

Finally, I get many comments from frustrated customers who tell me their gift cards aren’t working and the balance check process on Giftcards.com is broken. In most cases, the customer is simply trying to check the balance of another company’s gift card on our website.

Though Giftcards.com is one of the top-selling Visa gift card websites on the Internet, there are others. To find the balance, activate and register your Visa gift card, look at the back of your card to find out where that should be done.

And if you do have a gift card from Giftcards.com and need help finding out why the gift card doesn’t work, contact customer service for specific help with your card.

Visa Virtual egift cards must be used online, over the phone or wherever “card not present” transactions are allowed.

Beyond that, they work just like the plastic Visa gift cards. Just make sure to activate the card, register the card, enter the card number into the Debit/Credit card fields, ensure the dollar value covers the balance and so forth.

If you have checked all of these reasons why gift cards decline online and your gift card still isn’t working, then the best thing to do is call the number listed on the back of the card. Sometimes in an honest attempt to make a card work, users trip fraud detection sensors with repeated balance inquiries and multiple failed attempts to use a card. When that happens, you will most likely need to contact the issuing card company to get fraud-detection hold released.