What is AVS?

Address Verification Service (AVS) is a fraud prevention service for card-not-present
environments or non-swiped transactions. During a transaction, AVS compares the address
information that the cardholder gives you to what is on record for that credit card number.
PCCharge receives the AVS response and displays it after the transaction is processed.
You can either make business decisions on individual transactions, or you can use the
Address Verification Setup window and configure PCCharge to automatically filter out
those transactions whose AVS responses are unacceptable to you.

AVS Response Descriptions

Address and 5 Digit Match -- Street address and 5-digit ZIP code both match.
Exact Address and 9 Digit Match -- Street address and 9-digit ZIP code both match.
Address Match, No Zip Match -- Street address matches, but both 5-digit and 9-digit
ZIP Code do not match.
5 Digit Zip Match, No Address Match -- Street address does not match, but 5-digit
ZIP code matches.
9 Digit Zip Match, No Address Match -- Street address does not match, but 9-digit
ZIP code matches.
No Match -- Street address, 5-digit ZIP code, and 9-digit ZIP code all do not match.
Address Information Not Available -- Address information is unavailable, AVS error,
or non-US card issuer (does not support AVS).
Retry System Unavailable -- Retry, system is unavailable or timed out.
Service Not Available -- Card type does not support AVS.

AVS Usage Scenarios

The following usage scenarios will give you examples that you can use as a basis when
configuring your own Address Verification Setup window.
AVS Usage Scenario #1
1. In this example, all the options in the Address Verification Setup window HAVE
NOT been checked.
2. You manually enter (not using a card reader) a $10 credit card sale transaction into
PCCharge, including the incorrect Zip Code and Street information.
3. PCCharge connects to your processing company and receives a Result of NOT
CAPTURED and an AVS Response of No Match.
WARNING: Even though the PCCharge Result is NOT CAPTURED, the
card's "limit-to-buy" has been reduced. This means that the customer's credit
limit has been temporarily reduced by $10 (in this case), even though the
transaction funds will not actually be transferred from the customer's account to
your account. This scenario should illustrate the care that should be taken in
unchecking options in the Address Verification Setup window. You must
make a business decision on whether or not it is beneficial for you to uncheck
some or all of these options.
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