No more checking billing adress to match credit card

Shopify Discussion

AI-generated summary

A merchant reports that Shopify’s order risk view no longer visibly shows key fraud indicators such as billing-address/card-address match results and IP details, leaving only broad Low/Medium/High risk labels. They are concerned because prior “Low risk” orders were still fraudulent when AVS-style billing checks failed.

Others note that Shopify’s risk label is only one signal and does not guarantee an order is legitimate. Some suggest manual review rules, manual payment capture, Shopify Flow, or fraud apps, while the merchant stresses they specifically need issuer-provided billing-address verification and is reluctant to add apps after past conflicts.

A later reply explains that AVS results may still be stored in the order timeline under the payment event. AVS indicates whether the street/postal code matches the card issuer’s records; codes like Y, A, Z, N, or unavailable responses may appear depending on issuer/payment method.

The merchant eventually finds the address-matching information there, though says it is harder to read and IP information remains missing. The issue is partially resolved, with the missing IP indicator still unanswered.

1

Yesterday we get the low risk to high risk )in the

Order risk) modified to no more information given on billing adresses and IP.

I contacted Shopify who says, this is a new change but do not worry, because we change and simply send you, low to high risk update.

Thing is , MANY times Shopify sent me Low risk when in fact nothing worked. Wrong billing adress, IP adresse shows as across the country and once I checked, it was a fraud. But Shopify classifoed it Low Risk

This is real scary . And all stores will have this problem. Anyone realized this ?

2

Yes, this is concerning. The Low/Medium/High risk rating is useful, but I would never rely on that alone. We’ve seen the same thing where an order can look “Low Risk” while individual signals tell a very different story.

I’d recommend being especially careful with repeated payment attempts, mismatched customer information, unusual checkout behavior, and multiple cards being tried. Those patterns can be important even when the final order isn’t flagged as high risk.

We actually built Halt after dealing with automated card testing on our own Shopify stores. It focuses on stopping suspicious repeat checkout behavior before the card is charged, but for completed orders I’d still want as much of the underlying risk information as Shopify can provide.

Hopefully Shopify brings some of those details back. Less visibility makes it much harder for merchants who manually review questionable orders.

3

Halt is another app and it worries me. I went through hell early in the year with collections being removed from the website, etc. Turned out it was the app Pandectes who was messing uo with updates in shopify. Had pto remove, wait and reinstall. But a crazy job to have all my stuff back.

Ans I do not need to see if they trid a card many times.. My problem is really, fake adresses that do not match the billing. And even if I research the people, if the credit card belongs to someone else. This is totally crazy !! Really thinking of moving to another platform

5

Totally understand, and honestly Halt wouldn’t solve the specific problem you’re describing. It’s built specifically for card testing and automated checkout attacks, not for verifying whether the billing address or cardholder actually belongs to the person placing the order.

And I completely understand being hesitant about installing another app after what happened to your store. For what it’s worth, Halt doesn’t modify your theme, collections, or existing products/content, but I still wouldn’t recommend installing something you don’t need.

Your issue is really the information Shopify has taken away. If you’re manually reviewing orders, losing the billing and IP details makes it much harder to make your own decision instead of just trusting a Low/Medium/High rating. I’d be frustrated by that too.

6

Try not to confuse two completely separate issues.

  1. What is classified as Low, Medium, and High Risk. Shopify evaluates the order as a whole using numerous fraud signals. A different billing and shipping address, or an IP location that doesn’t match the shipping address, does not automatically determine the overall risk classification. There can be perfectly legitimate reasons for those differences. People use different billing and shipping address all the time for gift-giving. Shopify has a checkout setting to require them to match. If that’s what you want, USE IT! Also, a different billing and shipping address is not the same thing as a failed AVS check.

  2. What Shopify displays is only a fraction of the elements that it uses in its Risk Analysis Recommendation. So an IP address or another piece of information not being displayed does not, by itself, mean that Shopify’s overall fraud analysis is based only on the information you can see.

A Low Risk recommendation is not, I repeat, NOT, a validation or guarantee that an order isn’t fraudulent. It is Shopify’s assessment of the risk of a fraud-related chargeback and is a tool to help you make a fulfillment decision. That’s it.

I think it’s perfectly fine to criticize, and judge Shopify’s performance. But… Don’t make the mistake of assuming Shopify is the end-all-be-all and you’re just a button clicker. In the end, it is YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY as the merchant to decide whether you’re comfortable fulfilling an order.

7

Actually, you go ahead without even asking if we checked this. I am not dumb, I know shipping and billing can be different. And the messages are that the BILLING DOES NOT match the credit card adress, not the shipping..We get 95% of our orders only with billing adresses usually, but when the billing adresses do not match what is registred with the credit card and I end up contacting the person (who usually does not answer in these cases), or if they do, they tell me yes, sorry, I have an adress I used to live 5 years ago (which is almost not true, because I found ways to check where they lived before), so I tell them, sorry I had to cancel, but please reorder with the right adress, and they never do.

And I have a different story where the adress said it did not match but the lady had ordered before and the new adress was 5 houses down. So, I called her and she said, goodness i am out of town and I have been dealing with fake charges on my card. I have not ordered from you, please cancel this. I accept transactions manually so, so she had not gotten warnings on that transaction yet. But it was LOW risk, except adress did nto match billing…

Another story, I tried to buy a ticket on Greyhound and my card would not go through, called Visa (no problems_, then them and they told me my adress was wrong. I tried 2 more times and they blocked me. I called back Visa who told me after I read my adress that I was speeling Apartment as Apt, when on my card it was App. I tried again and it worked.SO, yes, shops will void your purchases if not entered as registered.

Also, I was the biggest online shopper for years even when in some countries it did not exist.. I shopped around the world and the darn adress had to match. Totally stupid to even think that someone can order and have any adress, then a store clerk who would steal my card info would have shipped at their adress ?

SO, this was important to us and yes I can cricticize, because we got no warnings and I wasted an hour this morning with someone from Shopify who thought I had deactivated something and made me try all kins of stuff and nothing was happening, then, after an hour, told me, sorry, I realize, this is a new thing Shopify does

And I can tell you about chargebacks as well where we called a credit card company ourselves after being stolen by a customer and the credit card company, said they get no messages (the proofs we have to defend ourselves) from Shopify

So, yes I have a reason to be angry

8

Sorry, that all sounds bad and everything, but the truth is it’s still YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A MERCHANT to plan, approve, and execute orders. You have the full capability of creating blockers, whether that be through a workflow in Shopify Flow, or some other checkout rule. There are many apps. You also have the full ability to put all orders on manual capture or auto after fulfillment. Everything is on you, the merchant selling your own goods. Nothing Shopify does prevents your proactive intervention.
Just because you are using the Low Risk as a definitive “This must be a valid order” doesn’t absolve you, the merchant, of responsibility. You are a business owner now, whether you want to admit it or not.

9

Thanks, but to answer to this

1-95% order only with billing adresses but in the past I had access to the info=billing adress does not match the credit card adress. So, now, what happens if we do not get this message ?

2- we do this already. 3 weeks after ordering do we ship, but accepting a fraudulous transaction and getting a message to cancel before shipping, well we have fees with Shopify. We void many orders where it did not match before and since we accept manually, then we have no fees when we void right away. So, this is not an option.

3-no need, we voided and they have to reorder with the right adress since the set-up in shopify before would tell us if right or wrong. And I needed that. They had to reorder. I do not care what they tell me over the phone, I need the systemt to check them

4- is this an app ? Do not want this because I used to check myself and have ways to research people, etc, so, they look legit. BUT even if they exist, if they used a stolen credit card, then.. with only the evaluation Low risk that will not give us the info that the adress doe not match, then…all useless.

So, you know, I check EVRY transaction and what was removed was very important, And no, Shopify, unless they have complaints will not change

But we will look into other platforms

10

read the message below and I did not say it was their responsability. This was NOT my post !!!

I said, they removed the info of the BILLING ADRESS MATCHING OR NOT THE CREDIT CARD, And that, no apps do., I checked and contacted a bunch. It is only the payment system from Shopify than can do this. Before commenting like this, ask first

11

Actually, you go ahead without even asking if we checked this. I am not dumb, I know shipping and billing can be different. And the messages are that the BILLING DOES NOT match the credit card adress, not the shipping..We get 95% of our orders only with billing adresses usually, but when the billing adresses do not match what is registred with the credit card and I end up contacting the person (who usually does not answer in these cases), or if they do, they tell me yes, sorry, I have an adress I used to live 5 years ago (which is almost not true, because I found ways to check where they lived before), so I tell them, sorry I had to cancel, but please reorder with the right adress, and they never do.

And I have a different story where the adress said it did not match but the lady had ordered before and the new adress was 5 houses down. So, I called her and she said, goodness i am out of town and I have been dealing with fake charges on my card. I have not ordered from you, please cancel this. I accept transactions manually so, so she had not gotten warnings on that transaction yet. But it was LOW risk, except adress did nto match billing…

Another story, I tried to buy a ticket on Greyhound and my card would not go through, called Visa (no problems_, then them and they told me my adress was wrong. I tried 2 more times and they blocked me. I called back Visa who told me after I read my adress that I was speeling Apartment as Apt, when on my card it was App. I tried again and it worked.SO, yes, shops will void your purchases if not entered as registered.

Also, I was the biggest online shopper for years even when in some countries it did not exist.. I shopped around the world and the darn adress had to match. Totally stupid to even think that someone can order and have any adress, then a store clerk who would steal my card info would have shipped at their adress ?

SO, this was important to us and yes I can cricticize, because we got no warnings and I wasted an hour this morning with someone from Shopify who thought I had deactivated something and made me try all kins of stuff and nothing was happening, then, after an hour, told me, sorry, I realize, this is a new thing Shopify does

And I can tell you about chargebacks as well where we called a credit card company ourselves after being stolen by a customer and the credit card company, said they get no messages (the proofs we have to defend ourselves) from Shopify

So, yes I have a reason to be angry

12

Just curious, but did posting here on a public forum gain anything for you, or was it pointless? Because the only people here who are going to reply to you are app developers… maybe the occasional fellow merchant like me, but that is a rare thing.

13

well, it started yesterday, so the guy from Shopify did advice I tell people, so more do complain. Again, I hate wasting my time and coming here, I only do as he suggested. It will get answers in a bit because this jas just started. I know with anything we post, app developers show up, even if to sell one to play hockey. :slight_smile:

And actually fro Chargebacks, when we had problems, lots of people came to share with similar story. Actually good to see what others do to try to prevent fraud, etc. And also, this last thing reinforces the feeling that I wish to leave this platform if they do not fix soon. Because we will only accept our regular customers and no new ones from now on. Lucky we sell to stores as well, so, the website is an extra.. But I hate that Shopify changes things without warnings and for the worse in this case

15

There is no evidence to even suggest this. You’ve been here less than a week lol…

Staff used to frequently come here, and even reply. But to say they come here and read stuf is just plain assumption. Just because your dumb chatbot says to post here to get their attention, doesn’t mean they actually do.

The only staff that verifiably do read posts are the forum managers, as they are technically required to.

16

it was not a chatbot, did I say that ??? and I had to waste my time with the bot to get to someone.

It was and agent and to have other people (Not a bot like yourself) to complain, not Managers from Shopify, . Again, did I say that ??

I have been on shopify for more than 10 years actually and the past 3-4 years, it has gone downhill.

And who are you ?? You are so agressive, please go find someone else to unload tonight. You are wasting my time answering all kind of made up assumptions. Please go elsewhere

17

I wasn’t talking to you @IamPripri

I was talking to @Clovia the app developer who has been here less than a week claiming that Shopify Staff look here lol The one who is just copy/pasting chatgpt garbage. and your agent is trained to tell you that. Lol you got a lot to learn if you think that’s what really happens instead of just forwarding your issue to the appropriate dept.

Like a Support agent is really going to guide you to a public merchant forum that shopify doesn’t actually reply to LOL

18

I did, I said. I did spoke to an agent and contrary to what you say, it made a difference to speak to people when we had problems with chargeback. I could not care less she was abot. Have a lot of work tonight and this is on the side and no time to deal with all the back and forths. Only warning and i know that some poeple with look at it as well, because again contrary to your arrogant comments, a lot to learn… You just cannot help yurself. Maybe some therapy ? Or go take up boxing and unload your anger elsewere ?

But I will not longer answer you, so you know

19

Lol well good luck to ya. Just remember it is entirely YOUR RESPONSIBILITY on the orders. Whether you want to accept them or reject them. All the tools are available to you, through Shopify, or some app. It’s entirely on you and you alone.

Yes, I agree, that more display of the individual Risk Facts would help, that should never be your sole judge of the order’s authenticity though. It’s only one tool that Shopify provides to you. Use it, don’t use it, completely up to you. It’s also your own choice whether you capture payment in the first place. It has different settings.

If it is such a problem, you need to do your own work in finding the right flags. Plenty of things you can do. Shopify Flow, third party checkout rules apps, etc. It is completely on you. You are the merchant. Not anyone else.

As for me, I will keep replying just as I have always done. There is nothing I hide. I am not some copy/paste app developer trying to sell my app to you. And I am not going to ever change. I would rather see you succeed on a different platform or a corrected vision of this one, than see you waste money on needless apps and time in a forum full of chatgpt fluff.

21

@Clovia I wonder why this post, from one of the best and most involved REAL people, has gone completely unanswered and unsolved.

https://community.shopify.com/t/can-we-get-a-request-a-feature-board-seriously/615097

There is zero evidence for what you are saying. Complaints and feature requests have ALWAYS been a problem. Sidekick guides here, we guide to Shopify Help:

https://community.shopify.com/t/automatic-collections-clutter-the-product-editor/652698/3

We have never waivered. Only you copy/pasters are saying differently.

22

@IamPripri I think the actual data you lost is still there, it just isn’t shown on the risk card anymore. The AVS result the card issuer sends back is still saved on the payment transaction of every order. That’s what the old “billing address doesn’t match” message was built from.

You can see it manually by opening the order, going to the timeline, and expanding the payment event. But since you review a lot of orders by hand, I’d rather have Shopify Flow read it for you and tag the order.

Roughly:

Trigger: Order created
Condition: Order / Transactions / Payment details / AVS result code is not “Y”
Action: Add order tag AVS-check (and optionally send yourself an internal email)

The codes that matter for your case:

Y = street and postal code both match
A = street matches, postal code does not
Z = postal code matches, street does not
N = neither matches
U / R / S / G = issuer didn't return a result (common on many non North American cards)

So N is your old “doesn’t match” warning, A and Z are partial matches, and the U/R/S/G group means no answer rather than a bad one. I’d treat those as their own tag so they don’t get mixed in with real mismatches.

One honest caveat: I haven’t built this exact condition in Flow on a live store myself. If the condition picker doesn’t show payment details directly, a small “Run code” step can read avsResultCode from the same transaction and pass it to the tag action. Try it on a test order first before relying on it.

Paired with the manual capture you already use, you’d get back the same red flag you had before, just as a tag in the orders list instead of a line on the risk card.

Hope that gives you the signal back without adding another app :folded_hands:

24

Hi there @IamPripri
I get the worry, but you’d already flagged orders for that same low risk rating before you’d caught them being fraudulnt, after all. I would consider Shopify’s risk level as one signal and not as a go decision. For high-value or atypical orders, check the status of the payment, customer history, shipping and billing information, IP location, and order patterns. You can also use Shopify Flow to alert you to orders with certain risk factors, order size, or customer behaviour, so these get an extra look before you fulfill.