[forgetfreeman]

Oh I did all kinds of dumb shit over the course of a 20 year career, make no mistake, and testing in prod is the least of my sins. That doesn't make it any less stupid, and in the case of testing payment gateways pointless. If you're in test mode you're going to rub up against the same endpoint you would in live. Either the card info you package and send validates or it doesn't. Using a test card doesn't alter your level of control over the situation in any way, it all goes down on your payment processor's servers. All testing card processing with a live card in prod is going to buy you is bullshit transaction data in your live datastore, and maybe a little less anxiety if it's your first time. OP is having a panic attack over card processor TOS though, so they're jammed either way.