The Address Verification Service (AVS) is a credit card fraud prevention system which was developed to assist merchants by verifying the address of American customers. By submitting the credit card billing address and the corresponding zip code with the authorization request, payment processing systems which use AVS can compare existing records with the order. If the billing address and the zip code in the card issuer's records matches the billing address and the zip code submitted, a degree of certainty is created for the merchant that the person using the card for the order is who they claim to be. Ideally, this reduces the number of customer disputes and chargebacks for the merchant, especially since it could prove difficult to reacquire shipped merchandise.
AVS result codes are not to be confused with authorization response codes which are issued by an Acquirer and indicate whether there are available funds in the account. AVS compares the billing address and the zip code submitted with an authorization request with the card issuer's address records. An AVS result code is returned to indicate if the submitted data matches the stored data. The cassette maps the service-specific AVS result codes to the Payments defined common AVS codes. Depending on the preferences that you configure for your store (in the AVSACCEPTCODES column from the STORE table), the transaction can still be processed if the result code indicates a mismatch. Shipping an order to an address with a mismatched AVS result code will not protect the merchant from a chargeback.
The order status changes to "A" (payment authorization requires review) if a non-zero common AVS code is returned by the Payments and the code is not one of the codes listed in STORE.AVSACCEPTCODES. The Payments Administrator can approve the order through the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.
Note that not all financial institutions use AVS.