Address Verification Systems â Keeping Your Credit Card From Unauthorized Use

With today’s advanced technology, we are now able to do a number of virtual transactions. Settling our utility bills, shopping and paying our employees can now be done in the comfort of our own homes in front of a computer on the Internet or by processing a credit card payment over the phone.

But have you noticed that the computer or the agent will always ask for your complete address in every transaction? If you have been doing a lot of transactions by phone or Internet, I’m sure that you have encountered this scenario a number of times. Some of us are getting very annoyed with it because they keep on asking that information even if they have our address on their records. This process is called address verification.

Just to clarify, we must not be annoyed if the agent is doing address verification on transactions. This is a very important task and is considered a standard operating procedure in terms of money matters.

But why is it very important for companies to do address verification? Companies are basically doing this for two reasons. The first one is to make sure that every transaction is an authorized transaction and thus protecting you from account fraud or theft. For example, another person had a hold of your credit card. By the mere possession of the card, he could use it to do some online or phone transactions. However, he will not be able to do that since he will be asked to verify the billing address of the card. Since that person does not have that information, he cannot verify it and thus the transaction will not push through.

How does the process of verifying the address work? The agent or the online shop will ask for the billing address. Once the billing address did not match the entries on the system, then the transaction will be declined. This will prevent any unauthorized use of your credit card.

Some companies, aside from having their own verification system, also use a USPS address verification system. USPS address verification system is an application that is connected to the United States Postal Service. This is a very reliable tool in checking whether the address is valid or is registered on the database. So once the company was not able to verify the address both on their database and on the USPS address verification system, they will totally reject the transaction and make a report about a fraud caller.

The second reason is that they want to have a smooth and good relationship with the client. If you found out that you have an unauthorized transaction on your credit card bill, I’m sure you will contact the company and complain because they allowed this unauthorized and unverified use of the credit card. Thus leading to a discontinuation of business. With the verification system, you are sure that only you and the authorized people can do the transaction.
With address verification by using their database and USPS address verification system, you can be sure that your account and your business relationship with the company is protected. In this way, you can continue doing transactions without worries since you have the key information needed by the verification systems.