Originally Posted by mia
This has generally worked well, but two merchants, one in the UK and one in the US, have rejected the card online because the address does not match even though I have entered it exactly as it appears on the bill. In each instance American Express customer service indicates the charges were approved, and they seem unaware of any reason the address verification would fail.
It sounds as if you have encountered the same problem. Is there anyone you know at Amex in the UK I could talk to, or any method you have devised to work around the problem, aside from asking the merchant to call?
dennis
Hi Dennis,
You are experiencing the same frustration that I did, repeatedly, and I'm afraid I never resolved it. That was why I eventually got a U.S. based card.
I spoke on numerous occasions to customer service in the UK (no specific person) and they verified time and again that the billing address I was using was correct. But some online merchants still could not verify and refused to do the call-in thing, stating that it was not an option for them (usually because they used a third-party processor).
I did a bit of research on the whole AVS system at the time, and depending on how the merchant sets their verification, you may never be able to get a transaction through. Some set it just for postal code / zip code. This often presented a problem for me because my postal code (Denmark) was not actually entered by AmEx UK in the postal code field of their database, since the format didn't match a UK postal code! So they used a text field for my postal code and it could never match up. Others set AVS so strict that it matches the entire address. And there is even an AVS setting that rejects all non-U.S. addresses. So it really depends on the merchant.
AmEx was not very sympathetic or helpful. I even wrote a formal letter to them about it and never received a response. But in phone conversations, they stubbornly insisted that my billing address was exactly as it was on the statement and as I was reading it to them over the phone and they stated, as they've done with you, that there was no reason for it to fail or be rejected.
I'm afraid it is only going to continue to get worse, as merchants crack down on fraud and implement tighter controls on using cards (not that I blame them, but it can be frustrating). Even with my U.S.-based card, I have problems with some merchants who reject the card because it has a U.S. address and they can determine from my IP address that I'm physically sitting in Denmark when trying to execute the transaction!
Good luck finding a solution.
Susan