mail7660Q: Problem with unpaid Stripe still appears as confirmed to who books
Hi team,
Testing paid bookings with Stripe and MB WAY, a popular mobile payment method in Portugal.
How MB WAY works: the customer types their mobile number at checkout, gets a push notification in the MB WAY app, and approves the payment there. Stripe reports success or failure right away. It's close to approve a payment request in a banking or wallet app
The problem: when I decline the payment in the app, Stripe records it as failed, but TidyCal still shows Booking confirmed to customer. I receive no notification, and no "Complete payment" email is sent, whether "Hold the slot when a payment is declined" is on or off.
1 Recovery emails work with MB WAY, or only with cards?
2 How to confirm the booking only after the payment succeeds?
Has anyone else seen this? I ve also sent the details by email. Thanks!
Luka_originals
Oct 12, 2026A: Hello, thanks for reaching out!
1. Recovery emails aren't limited to cards. The "Complete payment" email goes out when Stripe reports a booking payment as failed, whichever payment method was used, as long as "Hold the slot when a payment is declined" is on. The first one is sent about 30 minutes after the failed payment, with one reminder two hours later. With the setting off, a failed payment cancels the booking instead.
2. Paid bookings already wait for the payment. The confirmation emails, the calendar event and your own notification are only sent once the payment has gone through. The page your customer sees right after checkout appears before that point, which is why it can say "Booking confirmed" for a payment that hasn't cleared yet.
What you describe with MB WAY, a declined payment and no "Complete payment" email with the setting on or off, doesn't match that, so it needs to be looked at on your account rather than here. Thanks for sending the details by email already. Please keep it in that conversation with [email protected], and include a booking where this happened if you haven't yet.
More on failed payments: https://help.tidycal.com/article/1068-what-happens-when-a-booking-payment-fails