Awaiting payment, pending review, approved: order statuses in plain words
Each order moves through a few named stages. Knowing what each one means tells you whether to wait, pay or ask.
In this guide
Every order in your dashboard carries a status label. There are only five of them, and each one answers a single question: whose turn is it? Sometimes the next move is yours, sometimes it belongs to the checkout, and sometimes a person on our team is working on it. Here is what each label means and what, if anything, you should do.
The short version
| Status | What it means | Whose move |
|---|---|---|
| Awaiting payment | The order exists, but the checkout has not confirmed a payment | Yours |
| Pending review | Paid; waiting for a person to check it and issue the card | Ours |
| Approved | The card has been issued and is in My Cards | Yours, to use the card |
| Declined | We could not issue the card; the reason is on the order page | Yours, to read the reason and reply |
| Cancelled | The checkout was cancelled before payment | Nobody; start a new order if you still want a card |
Awaiting payment
When you press "Continue to payment", we create the order with its fees fixed and send you to the hosted checkout. Until that checkout reports a completed payment, the order says "Awaiting payment".
You will see this status in three situations. First, while you are still on the checkout page deciding how to pay. Second, right after you send crypto, while the network confirms the transaction; this can take from under a minute to longer for some coins at busy times. Third, if you closed the checkout without paying.
In the third case, open the order and press "Pay now" to return to the checkout. If you no longer want the card, simply leave the order alone. An unpaid order never becomes a card and never costs anything. When a payment you are sure you sent does not move the order on after a reasonable wait, our guide on how the checkout confirms payments explains what to check.
Pending review
This is the status most people see the longest, and it is good news: the money arrived and the checkout told us so. Now the order sits in a queue for a member of our team. They compare the amount received with the order total, look at the order and the account for anything unusual, and then enter the card details.
Paid orders are usually checked and issued within a few hours. You do not need to do anything, and sending a support message asking for an update will not move the order up the queue. If you would like to know what is happening behind the scenes, read what to do while your order is in review.
Approved
The order passed review and produced a card. The order page links straight to it, and the card appears at the top of My Cards with an Active status. We also send an email and a dashboard notification. From here, the card has its own life: its balance, status and expiry date are shown on the card itself rather than on the order.
The order page stays as a permanent record of what you paid: the balance, the top-up charge, the issue fee and the payment reference from the checkout. Keep that page in mind if you ever need proof of a purchase.
Declined
Occasionally a paid order cannot be turned into a card. The most common reason is a payment that arrived short of the total. Others include a payment that cannot be matched, an order that looks linked to misuse, or a card program that cannot supply a card at that moment. The reason is always written on the order page and in the email we send.
Read the reason, then reply through a support ticket with the order reference. If the problem was a short payment, our guide to fixing an underpaid order explains the options. Our refund policy covers what happens to money that reached us for an order we could not complete.
Cancelled
A cancelled order is one where the checkout itself was cancelled before any payment went through. Nothing was charged and nothing will happen next. If you still want a card, start a fresh order; the fees will follow the rates at that moment.
Why statuses never skip backwards
An order only ever moves forward: awaiting payment, then pending review, then approved or declined. That makes the label reliable. If you see "Pending review", the payment is confirmed and cannot silently disappear. If you see "Approved", a card exists. The fees on the order are fixed from the moment it is created, so a change to our rates while your order waits does not change what you owe or paid. The pricing page always shows the current rates for new orders.
Where statuses show up
- My Orders lists every order with its status and links to each order page.
- The order page shows a four-step progress bar, the price breakdown and payment details.
- The overview counts orders waiting for review.
- Notifications and email announce each change, so you do not need to keep checking.
For the whole journey from sign-up to card, see the how it works page.
Quick answers
My order says "Awaiting payment" but I paid. What now?
Give the network time to confirm. If it stays unchanged well beyond the usual time for your coin, open a ticket with the order reference and your wallet's transaction link.
Can I cancel an order that is pending review?
Ask support through a ticket. Once a card is issued, the refund policy applies to the card balance instead.
BuyVCC Team
The people who review BuyVCC orders write these guides from the questions customers send us. Notice something outdated? Let us know.