Do you require billing & shipping info to be identical?

[tomld2]

I am wondering how many merchants require their customer's billing and shipping info to be the same? I never have and frequently have legitiment orders shipped to an address different than their billing address. However my processor recommends I require identical billing/shipping info. Any advice?

Thanks
Tom

[Tsuren]

tomld2, it depends on kind of your merchandizes. Expensive and easy-to-sell merchandizes (like digital cameras, jewelry, notebooks, PDA) are more dangerous obviously.
But I am sure that is pretty far from the smartest decision if we are talking about flowers.

[phantombookman]

I do it all the time but my customers all seem to be honest - I never even 'lose' anything in the post.

Most of mine are to work addresses as professional people seldom seem to have anyone at home during delivery hours nowadays

Were I selling laptops, video games etc I would not dare do it.

[Morocco]

I don't require same bill to or ship to and we sell everything including electronics.

Alot of our business is generated by college students. They are impulse buyers and online 24/7 courtesy of their schools, and they all have their first credit card. At first we didn't want their business due to the frequency of friendly-fraud. The minute these kids discovered the zero liability on their Visas they were charging them back left and right. We have elimintaed the friendly fraud and now accept every order that is qualified regardless of different bill to and ship to.

[SkyDog]

That's just one in a series of fraud indicators. Other signs include express shipping,large ticket items,multiples of the same item. If you feel an order is questionable, verify telephone for billing address and verify the order by phone. Requiring the card code on back of the card helps alot too.

[RedWolf]

I require it by policy, but will make exceptions in cases where it is a low value item and all other factors are good including the gut check. If someone has a probem with shipping to the billing address, I will ask them to contact their card issuer and put the shipping address on file. I will then call up the issuer to verify the shipping address before processing the transaction. A lot depends on what you are selling and also on your transacton volume. It it is tons of small to medium sized items, then you may better able to absorb the occasional fraud order. If you sell fewer but high value items, more time and effort can and needs to be put into fraud detection.

[Filipe]

I think it's a hassle. You can create a pretty strong fraud screen without detracting from the user experience. A better way to handle it is to come up with a rating system for orders regarding their properties, and then use that rating to inspect orders more closely. E.g.,

(+.5 points) user's first time shopping
(+2 point) order is non-domestic
(+2 points) billing info not equal to the shipping info
(+5 points) subtotal is greater than X amount
(+8 points) order is being shipped to a freight forwarder
(+8 points) order IP is found on a blacklist
etc.

Then when viewing your orders, you can manually review them before shipping. Since it's on a fraud probability scale, you can opt to review, for example, only orders that have 5 points or more.

Better to make it *slightly* more annoying for yourself than *much* more annoying for users who are, say, having products shipped to work rather than their home so they're there to receive it.