stripe api checking for existing card

So the idea here would be to use the fingerprint on the Card object or the Token object and not the id itself as those would be different if you add the same card multiple times.

When you get a new card token you can retrieve it through the Retrieve Token API and look for the fingerprint in the card hash.

You would keep a list of known fingerprints in your database associated with a specific customer and/or card so that you can detect duplicate cards.

NOTE: make sure you are using the secret keys to get those information. otherwise if you are using the publishable key, you might not get the fingerprint value.


I created a function to do this:

  • $customer is the stripe customer object
  • $stripe_account is either your account's stripe ID or the connected account's stripe ID
  • $token comes from stripe.js elements
  • $check_exp allows you to decide if you want to check the card's expiration date as well, because the fingerprint does not change if the card's number is the same
  • stripe PHP API 7.0.0

    function check_duplicate_card($customer, $stripe_account, $token, $check_exp) {
    $loc = "check_duplicate_card >> ";
    $debug = true;
    
    if ($debug) {
        // see here for an explanation for logging: http://php.net/set_error_handler >> Examples
        trigger_error("$loc started", E_USER_NOTICE);
    }
    
    try
    {
        // get token data
        $response = \Stripe\Token::retrieve(
            $token,
            ["stripe_account" => $stripe_account]
        );
        $token_fingerprint = $response->card->fingerprint;
        $token_exp_month = $response->card->exp_month;
        $token_exp_year = $response->card->exp_year;
        if ($debug) {
            trigger_error("$loc token_fingerprint = $token_fingerprint; token_exp_month = $token_exp_month; token_exp_year = $token_exp_year", E_USER_NOTICE);
        }
    
        // check for duplicate source
        if ($debug) {
            trigger_error("$loc customer sources = " . json_encode($customer->sources), E_USER_NOTICE);
        }
        $duplicate_found = false;
        foreach ($customer->sources->data as &$value) {
            // get data
            $fingerprint = $value->fingerprint;
            $exp_month = $value->exp_month;
            $exp_year = $value->exp_year;
    
            if ($fingerprint == $token_fingerprint) {
                if ($check_exp) {
                    if (($exp_month == $token_exp_month) && ($exp_year == $token_exp_year)) {
                        $duplicate_found = true;
                        break;
                    }
                } else {
                    $duplicate_found = true;
                    break;    
                }
            }
        }
        if ($debug) {
            trigger_error("$loc duplicate_found = " . json_encode($duplicate_found), E_USER_NOTICE);
        }
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        if ($e instanceof \Stripe\Exception\ApiErrorException) {
            $return_array = [
                "status" => $e->getHttpStatus(),
                "type" => $e->getError()->type,
                "code" => $e->getError()->code,
                "param" => $e->getError()->param,
                "message" => $e->getError()->message,
            ];
            $return_str = json_encode($return_array);
            trigger_error("$loc $return_str", E_USER_WARNING);
            http_response_code($e->getHttpStatus());
            echo $return_str;
        } else {
            $return_array = [
                "message" => $e->getMessage(),
            ];
            $return_str = json_encode($return_array);
            trigger_error("$loc $return_str", E_USER_ERROR);
            http_response_code(500); // Internal Server Error
            echo $return_str;
        }
    }
    
    if ($debug) {
        trigger_error("$loc ended", E_USER_NOTICE);
    }
    
    return $duplicate_found;
    }