 Money News at 10 and 40 past the hour. Here's Mark Hamrick. Top reasons credit card purchases are declined. I'm Mark Hamrick with the Bankrate.com Personal Finance Minute. Declined for a credit card? I remember when it happened to me 30 plus years ago. I was running some ice skates and behind on my payments. I still remember how embarrassing it was. The reasons for having a credit card declined include the relatively new issue of triggering fraud protection alerts when something just doesn't look right to the issuer.