I recently tried to buy something through an online store, only to have my credit card rejected because my billing address did not match my IP address. I travel a lot, and am rarely at home, so this policy seems completely asinine to me. I imagine that many college students and active duty military people, for instance, don’t have billing addresses that aren’t the city where they actually live.
So, why would a company even have a policy like this? What purpose does it serve?
Have you encountered any other companies that have the IP address must match billing address requirement? This is the first company in 4+ years that I have ever had this problem with.
Hrm. Well, I’d suggest to the company that if they want to continue doing business in this travel-everywhere world, that they may want to consider doing what Google does, which is a double-verification via sending a code to your cell phone. Or at least a verification/acceptance of several devices, regardless of IP. Otherwise, they’re going to lose a lot of business.
I’m guessing it just has to be in the same area since, without a warrant, they can’t pin an IP address to your home address. The only person who can do that is your actual internet provider. All they can do is say “I see from your IP address, you’re in the Spokane area, but you gave me a billing address from Houston…declined”
There’s no such thing as an IP address matching a billing address unless you are running a web server out of the same building as your ISP. Most likely the company is doing a rough comparison. In my case, my IP (which is 100% legitimate) shows as being from 200 miles away, so I guess that company won’t sell me shit.
It may avoid fraud, but it will also lose them business. Heck, I buy a lot of stuff online, but if they don’t offer Paypal, I’m outta there. There are too many other vendors who will take my business.
As a side note, I heard a lot of people say that a few years ago on this site (and IRL) so a while back I added that option to my business’ website…Exactly one person has used it (out of a hundred or so orders).
I see what you’re saying, but the few times I’ve had my cc number swiped, fraudulent purchases have invariably popped up from across the country or in the UK. It may be a little hassle, but a phone call to someone is a lot easier than cleaning up after fraud.
If it cost you nothing or next-to-nothing to add Paypal, then it was worth it, as you got one more order than otherwise (maybe it was me? ). I hope it was worthwhile.
If not, consider that Paypal has a greater user base in some areas, like computers, gadgets, geek stuff and electronics. Perhaps your website isn’t in that category.
The amount of time it takes me to fill out all the online forms for a simple web transaction is considerable if not Paypal. First and last name, address, phones, shipping address, mailing address, credit card issuer, credit card numbers, CVP, expiration date, registration, online name, password, etc., and if you make a single mistake, they typically wipe out everything you entered and you have to start over.
Contrast that to clicking on the Paypal icon. Enter one password, verify the charge info (which you have to do anyway) and you’re done. Mailing address, shipping address, billing address, verification, all automatic. I can only assume that many shoppers don’t know about this, as it’s a wonderful timesaver.
If this is something that you really need from this particular site, I would suggest calling them and letting them know what’s going on. For a while, I did fraud prevention for a site, and we did it all manually. Or they may have, as was suggested, automatic flags such as ‘wrong state’, or whatnot.
Give them a call if you want it resolved, they will probably get it straightened out.
I contacted them via their customer support form (there was no number to call) when I couldn’t make the transaction work.
They wrote back to say that it was because my billing address and IP address didn’t match. I wrote back to tell them that I wasn’t likely to be in my home city for a long while, and asked them whether we could work something out.
I haven’t heard back yet. But, if they don’t have a straightforward solution or won’t let me retroactively have the sale price, I’m going to call it quits with that company.
Digital River (for Microsoft) and Cleverbridge (Parallels, others) both do geo-blocking for fraud prevention. It’s a pain in the rear end dealing with any company that uses these two payment services.
Cleverbridge was responsive and able to be contacted. Digitil River had no way that I could discern to get a hold of them – unfortunately they’re Microsoft’s online partner, and so even though they’re not worth dealing with, sometimes you have to do so anyway.
I live in China and so either have a Chinese IP address (fraud!) or a VPN address (fraud!) or a random work address (it’s all one huge IP block but parts of it show India, Philippines, Michigan USA). I usually have to VNC into my Michigan house and conduct transactions there. Given that my billing address is Texas and my Michigan IP address shows Michigan without fail, I would suggest that they’re not truly matching IP blocks to areas, but rather flagging specific IP blocks that aren’t generally traceable to an individual or organization.
). I hope it was worthwhile.