When an order is placed by a customer with the intention of sending the shipment as a gift to someone else, some common mistakes may accidentally flag the order as potential fraud risk by our accounting team. Some risks flagged by the team include:
- The customer's IP address is hundreds of miles from the customer's proposed billing address. An IP address is like a mailing address for computers - it helps to identify where the customer actually made the purchase. When these don't match or are quite far from each other, they risk getting flagged by our team as potential purchase fraud.
- The billing address for the credit card used in the purchase does not match the billing address entered at checkout. These should also match.
How to Fix These Issues
- Turn off VPN: A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service that establishes a secure, encrypted connection between a user's device and a private server, routing all internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to protect data privacy and mask the user's IP address.
If you are using one of these to make a transaction with us, we advise that you turn it off. - Do not Enter the Recipient Shipping Address as Billing: the most common mistake are customers entering both the billing and shipping address as the same, despite the credit card matching a different billing address.
An Address Verification Service (AVS) failure means the numeric parts of the billing address (the street number and ZIP code) entered at checkout do not match what the card-issuing bank has on file. This typically signals a simple typo, an outdated bank record, or potential card fraud. If our system reports that the billing address entered at checkout does not match the bank card's billing address, it may risk getting flagged by the accounting team.
Instead, please enter your true billing address. This is the address you have provided the bank or credit card issuer as your home address. The shipping address - the address that you wish to send your gift item to - should be different from the billing address.
Didn't See a Separate Billing and Shipping Address Form at Checkout?
The billing address form is always present after the shipping address form in the checkout. However you may not immediately see it because our checkbox next to the form element "My billing address is the same as my shipping address." is checked. We have this set that way in checkout because, typically, the shipping recpient is also the person making the purchase. When checked, the checkout skips to payment options instead of presenting you with a form to enter your billing address.
Uncheck the Shipping Address is the Same as Billing Address Box
You can turn this off and enter the recipient shipping address by unchecking the box next to "My billing address is the same as my shipping address." Do this before entering shipping address.
Unchecking this box will present you with a blank billing address. Now you can enter the proper billing address that matches your credit card.
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