wingslevel - 9:52 pm on Jan 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

Our fraudulent orders are way down (to almost zero) since we implemented avs (address verification) in late November. Basically, if the billing address provided by the customer doesn't match up with the address that the credit card company has on file, the charge declines.

The bad news is that our declines are now running 12% - up from their historic 5%. Our decline notification email tries to explain that most declines are because of address mismatches - and we encourage the customer to come back and edit their billing address, but it is still a pain for the customer. I'm still not sure how many sales we are losing and whether it is worth it.

Recently I've purchased goods on two sites that asked for the three digit number (4 on amex) - maybe that's a better solution. Like graywolf, I'd like to know if anyone is using this technique.