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Does AVS
Affect Your Event Registration?You may have heard
the term AVS or encountered a situation when buying something
online where your shipping address needed to match the address
on your credit card. In this article we will explain what
AVS is and how it could be affecting your online event registration.
AVS (Address Verification System) in a nutshell
is a system used to verify your identity as the owner of
the credit card you’re using to pay for something online.
Essentially it protects you if you’re card is stolen and
someone tried to use your card but does not know your address.
However, AVS can become frustrating when you’re trying
to pay online with a credit card and for one reason or another
are entering a shipping or contact address that does not
match the address that is on file with your credit card
company.
For instance, I was trying to purchase a product
online recently, and my credit card was rejected each time
I tried to submit my order. The reason was that I was trying
to purchase a product with my credit card and have it shipped
to my office.
So what? AVS can increase the potential for
transactions to be declined when using online registration.
Transactions that would normally be approved might be declined
because the registrant is using an address to register that
is different than the credit card billing address.
Since AVS is mostly used to make sure merchandise is being shipped
to the proper person (ex: Amazon or eBay), it may not be
necessary to use for online event registration since there
is no merchandise being shipped (ie: the person committing
online fraud cannot receive anything from the registration
and most likely won’t turn up at your event!)
Then what?
You’ll probably want to check your AVS settings if you are
receiving a lot of declined credit cards for your event
and you aren’t also using the merchant account for selling
merchandise. Talk to your online registration provider for
more details on your settings and if you want to change
your AVS settings you will need to contact your gateway
company.
If you are concerned about your settings or would
like more information about AVS feel free to contact us
and we will help to point you in the right direction.
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