Return Notification

Notifies the Merchant that a settled payment transaction has been returned by the Consumer’s financial institution.

When a Consumer's financial institution returns a settled payment, the Paramount system sends a notification to the event notification URL specified by the Merchant during the system integration phase. After verifying the content of the return notification, the data can be processed by the Merchant's back office and used for account reconciliation. Financial institution returns are deducted from the Merchant's Paramount balance.

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When the Merchant system receives an event notification, it must perform a series of checks on the data in the notification before sending a verification request. See Transaction Verification .

Return Notification Parameters

The parameters included in an event notification are similar to those included in a payment response notification and Merchants can use the return code data included in the notification to automatically take action based on their return and charge back policies. For example, debiting the Consumer's account, blocking the Consumer, or flagging the Consumer for manual review.

ParameterTypeSizeRequiredDescription
user_idString30YesThe Consumer user ID used by Paramount.
txn_numString30YesThe transaction number created by Paramount for the return transaction.
txn_typeString1YesThe transaction type.
  • *R**: Return of a settled payment from the Consumer’s financial institution.
merchant_idString8YesThe 8-character Merchant account ID assigned by Paramount.
merchant_user_idString20YesThe unique Merchant-assigned Consumer user ID that was specified in the original payment request.
merchant_txn_numString30YesThe Merchant-assigned transaction number that identifies the original payment.
txn_amountDecimal(7.2)YesThe returned payment transaction amount. The amount must be between 1.00 and 99999.99.
txn_feeDecimal(6.2)YesThe return transaction fee payable by the Merchant, if applicable.
txn_currencyString3YesThe uppercase 3-letter currency code (ISO 4217).
original_txn_numString30YesThe transaction number of the original payment transaction.
error_codeString4NoThe error code associated with the return.
return_codeString3YesThe return code specified by the Consumer's financial institution. See Return Codes

Request Example

Request parameters are encoded in application/x-www-form-urlencoded format.

txn_num=20200101012345678982000001&merchant_user_id=TestUser1&txn_fee=0.00&txn_currency=CAD&user_id=1234567890123-AB1CDE2F&txn_type=R&merchant_txn_num=1234567890&error_code=&merchant_id=DemMerch&txn_amount=100.00&original_txn_num=20200101012345678982000000&return_code=15

Return Codes

When a payment is returned, the relevant return code is included in the return notification.

Table 2: Return codes

CodeReasonDescription
10Money not receivedMoney not received from the user.
15Refused by payor/payeeThe payor/payee has requested the credit or debit be returned.