Why does Stripe.com return error (402) Payment Required? - vb.net

Question

I'm not seeing this particular error described in stripes API anywhere. Anyone know what's going on?
Here is my VB.net code to create a customer:
Function CreateStripeCustomer(ByVal Token As String) As String
'' The Stripe Account API Token - change this for testing
Dim STR_Stripe_API_Token As String = "sk_test_SECRET_TEST_KEY" '<-- test secret key. Change to live later.
''The Stripe API URL
Dim STR_Stripe_API_URL As String = "https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers"
''Creates a Web Client
Dim OBJ_Webclient As New System.Net.WebClient()
''Creates Credentials
Dim OBJ_Credentials As New System.Net.NetworkCredential(STR_Stripe_API_Token, "MY_STRIPE.COM_PASSWORD")
''Sets the Credentials on the Web Client
OBJ_Webclient.Credentials = OBJ_Credentials
''Creates a Transaction with Data that Will be Sent to Stripe
Dim OBJ_Transaction As New System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection()
OBJ_Transaction.Add("email", "PERFECTLY_VALID_EMAIL")
OBJ_Transaction.Add("card", "PERFECTLY VALID TOKEN RETURNED BY STRIPE.JS")
''The Stripe Response String
Dim STR_Response As String = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(OBJ_Webclient.UploadValues(STR_Stripe_API_URL, OBJ_Transaction))
Return STR_Response
End Function
The 402 "payment required" error is happening on the line:
Dim STR_Response As String = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(OBJ_Webclient.UploadValues(STR_Stripe_API_URL, OBJ_Transaction))

Answer 1

If you're seeing this in live, it's also possible the card number is simply incorrect, eg: if you inspect the body of the 402 response:

Answer 2

Well, I switched to my "LIVE" keys instead of my "TEST" keys, and that fixed it. Just wasted 3 hours of my life trying to fix this. Hope this helps somebody else.

Answer 3

The more correct answer is that you need to use the appropriate test card numbers. See https://stripe.com/docs/testing

Answer 4

Stripe provides a test environment in which you use the test publishable/secret keys, as oppose to waiting till production. However, what seems like the down side, which is in fact very helpful is that you need to comply to Stripe's testing conditions and use their given card numbers and inputs to test different aspects of your api call.
For example, in order to receive certain errors you can input these numbers:
card_declined: Use this special card number - 4000000000000002.
incorrect_number: Use a number that fails the Luhn check, e.g. 4242424242424241.
invalid_expiry_month: Use an invalid month e.g. 13.
invalid_expiry_year: Use a year in the past e.g. 1970.
invalid_cvc: Use a two digit number e.g. 99.
For more information refer to the link that Samir posted.

Answer 5

For iOS
If you are following tutorial from Ray Wunderlich website the reason why error may appear is that you run your test back end (web.rb file) and after that add you TEST_SECRET_KEY.
Go to the terminal click control+C, make sure you have already added your TEST_SECRET_KEY, save file and do ruby web.rb.
For now, everything should work fine.
For reference, I used this number of the card for testing: 4242 4242 4242 4242