## 🔍 Overview

In some cases, a payment card stored in your Search Atlas account can become out of sync with Stripe, the payment processor we use. When this happens, the card may appear removable on your end but cannot actually be deleted through the normal interface — and attempting to add the same card again triggers a Stripe error. This is a known billing sync issue that requires our team to resolve on the backend.



## ⚠️ Signs You Are Affected

- You receive a Stripe error when trying to re-add a card that was previously saved to your account.
- The option to remove your existing payment method does not work, or the card reappears after deletion.
- You are unable to add credits or complete a purchase because the payment method is stuck.
- You cannot set a new card as your default payment method.

## 📋 What You Should Do

Because this issue involves a mismatch between your Search Atlas account and Stripe's records, it cannot be fixed from within the platform on your own. Our billing team must manually deactivate or remove the stale payment method from the backend before you can re-add your card successfully.

1. **Do not attempt to add the same card multiple times.** Repeated attempts will not resolve the underlying mismatch and may cause additional errors.
2. **Contact our support team immediately** using the live chat widget (see below). Provide the last four digits of the affected card so the team can locate the correct record.
3. **Wait for confirmation** that the stale payment method has been removed from the backend. Our billing team will notify you once the fix is applied.
4. **Re-add your card** only after you have received confirmation that the issue is resolved. You should then be able to add credits and manage your payment method without errors.

## 💡 Why This Happens

This error occurs when a payment method record in Search Atlas becomes out of sync with Stripe — for example, after a billing system migration or if a card detachment event was not correctly processed between the two systems. Our engineering team has deployed fixes to prevent this from occurring automatically in future, but accounts affected before those fixes were applied may still need a one-time manual cleanup.



## 🚀 After the Fix

Once our team confirms the stale record has been removed, you can re-add your card as normal and resume purchasing credits or managing your subscription. If you experience the same issue again after the fix, contact support straight away so we can investigate further.



## 💬 Need Help?

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.