How To Handle "AVS Not Supported" Response?

[olimits7]

Hi,

How do you handle orders when you receive an "AVS Not Supported" response code?

I've receive this AVS response every once in a while for certain credit cards, and it's hard to determine if the order is not fraudulent because I do receive an approved authorization.

However, since I receive an approved authorization I don't know what to really ask a customer to verify their order.

At least when I get a "No Match" or "Declined" response; I can email the customer and tell them exactly why their order was declined.

Thank you,

olimits7

[MrHard]

Call or email the customer for the phone number on the card. Then call and verify name and address.

[digitalv]

This usually only happens on:

1. Foreign Banks in countries you probably don't want to ship to anyway.
2. Temporary/Prepaid Cards that aren't traceable to a specific person.

It's up to you whether you want to bother with these at all.

[olimits7]

Hi,

If I'm able to get the phone number on the credit card from the customer; would the credit card company verify their name/address when I call even though I'm not the cardholder?

Thank you,

olimits7

[HRoth]

I used to do that, but it was a PIA. Now I just make a gut decision whether I think the order is okay or not. It almost always is. The only time I am really not sure what to do is when I have a very large order with either no AVS match (inside US) or AVS not available (outside US or gift card). I have one right now for almost $400 from Australia. I just don't feel good about it. What I usually do is just void the transaction without contacting the person. If they contact me, then I can usually tell by their contact if it was bona fide or not. Thing is, they almost never do, which to me means it was fraud.

[MrHard]

If I'm able to get the phone number on the credit card from the customer; would the credit card company verify their name/address when I call even though I'm not the cardholder?

Of course. Many merchants actually call in to do authorizations also, getting an auth code over the phone.

Plus I would never say this if I had not done it.

Verifying name and address actually takes less time and effort then responding to and reading this post. These are always phone ins though, the system locks out international online orders, they need to call in, so getting all the info at once is easy.

It's the Canadian/international orders for no AVS. Never got one like this for domestic.

[jecasc]

This usually only happens on:
1. Foreign Banks in countries you probably don't want to ship to anyway.
2. Temporary/Prepaid Cards that aren't traceable to a specific person.

Actually AVS on credit cards is only supported in a minorty of countries. For VISA and Mastercard, AVS is only available in the US, UK and Canada. So if you ship to the EU or other countries a lot, "AVS not supported" is the rule, not the exception.

[interaction123]

How much is AVS used ?

If AVS is used a lot , that means that won't be able to accept a lot of customers from outside the USA,UK and Canada ?