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Before Retrying Payment Checklist

This page helps you decide whether retrying is safe, not how to retry.

Read this before retrying a failed or uncertain payment.

Applies if

  • A payment attempt has failed or timed out
  • You are considering retrying, recharging, or re-sending the payment
  • Duplicate charge or inconsistent state is possible

Checklist (Yes/No)

☐ Is the failure deterministic (configuration, authentication, idempotency)?
☐ Has the original payment state been fully reconciled?
☐ Is idempotency guaranteed across retries?
☐ Could retry result in partial success or duplicate charge?
☐ Is customer communication aligned with the retry outcome?
☐ Is someone explicitly responsible if retry worsens the state?

Judgment

If any item above is uncertain,
you should NOT retry the payment.

Boundary

This checklist does not explain how to retry payments.
It exists to prevent risk amplification caused by blind retries.