Merchant Accounts and AVS Declines

any real guru's that might be able to help

[smackman]

Hey all, was wondering if there are any real gurus out there who understand the guts of merchant accounts and AVS processing. I understand most of the basics pretty well I think but here's the dilemma. No matter what I do, PO Box billing addresses and Canadian billing addresses always seem to get declined.

Question 1 - Is it possible (or more accurately "wise") to "massage" the data before submitting it for processing? For example, I think once someone submitted it with just the box # in the billing address (without the PO Box text part) and it got processed. Would it be worth my while to recode to do that? Or is this just a shortfall of my gateway provider?

Question 2 - With Canadian addresses I can turn AVS off using a sub-account of my merchant account. Any idea how risky this is, not just for Canadian addresses but in general?

Question 3 - Will very detailed messages help convert the sale or just turn the customer off quicker? If you were buying something online and the following message came up, would you think it were being helpful or just annoying and give up?

Transaction declined due to invalid address or zip. Please verify that the billing street address and zip code you have submitted below match exactly to your credit card statement. If you have moved recently, you may try using your old address for your billing address and the new one for your shipping address. If you are certain it is correct, you may try submitting the form again, or you can Print this Order Form (link) to fax or mail to us at the address listed, or you may also call us Toll Free to place your order at [phone].

Question 4 - Finally, how do you deal with declines? Do you phone up customers whose transactions have been declined to attempt to close the sale, email them? Do they get offended at all by contacting them?

Thanks for any info anyone can provide.

[Longhaired Genius]

I'm not the guru you were hoping to rouse but I have an opinion on question 3. I think the more information you can give, the better. Having you credit card rejected is always traumatic so be as reassuring as you can. Instead of "Transaction declined due to invalid address or zip", I would say "Your transaction was declined because the credit-card processor thinks your address or zip is invalid" and carry on in the same vein.

[Sunshyn]

In cases where we get an AVS decline, we get the bank phone number from our merchant service. It seems a very common practice, and worthwhile. For at least half the transactions that we end up having to call the bank direct, that bank ends out verifying the same address which wouldn't go through the automated system.

That automated system doesn't handle Canadian zip codes at all. However, the merchant service will connect us direct to those banks via phone for verification purposes. Those rarely are problematic (as opposed to attempting to verify information with European banks).

Hope this is at least somewhat helpful to you. I am not very familiar with other systems. We had our merchant account years before we began selling online and still handle our own payment processing.