I’ve received many reports about people getting payment errors when trying to pay for the TOEFL and GRE tests on the ETS website. This is sometimes reported as “Error 481” or “Error 101” or “Error 476” (or something else). The same errors appear when students attempt to pay for the GRE on the ETS website.
Anyways, if you are having this problem, here’s what you should do:
- Delete your cookies/browser history and try again.
- Disable all of your browser extensions.
- Try using private/incognito mode.
- Try using a different Internet browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, whatever).
- If payment by credit card doesn’t work, try PayPal. That uses a different payment system. Note that most people don’t need a “PayPal account” to use PayPal. People from most countries just need to enter their name and credit card number.
- Make sure the address in your ETS account matches the address of your credit card, if possible.
And, of course, you should call your bank in case they are blocking the payment for some reason.
If you can’t solve the problem you can possibly register (and pay) by phone. For test centers in the USA call +1-443-751-4862. To register for a test center outside of the USA, look up your country on this contact page.
As always, the general support numbers for ETS are: +1-609-771-7100 or 1-877-863-3546. Expect to be on hold for a few hours. Good luck.
Note that if you are getting a blank screen that says “select a payment method” you should disable your adblocker.
Leave a comment down below if you have any experience with this problem.