Symptoms
When attempting to submit a payment or process a transaction in Salesforce, users may encounter a gateway error that prevents the payment from going through. The error message typically reads:
Error: Customer ID, [Alphanumeric String], was not found or is incomplete.
Cause
This error indicates a broken connection between the Payment Profile stored in Salesforce and the corresponding customer record in your payment gateway
Salesforce is attempting to reference a specific Customer ID string that no longer exists on the gateway side. This typically occurs when a customer's profile is manually deleted, modified, merged, or archived directly within the payment gateway's portal.
Resolution
Once the original profile is removed or altered in the gateway, the connection to that specific Salesforce Payment Profile is permanently broken.
To resolve the issue and process the payment:
Advise the user or client to process the transaction by selecting New Payment Method.
Have them re-enter their credit card details entirely fresh (even if it is the exact same credit card they were trying to use previously).
Submitting the new details will bypass the broken connection, generate a brand-new token and Customer ID on the gateway, and automatically establish a working Payment Profile in Salesforce.