Merchants are experiencing approved transactions despite billing address mismatches with registered card addresses. The core issue: Shopify’s fraud detection system only verifies postal codes, not full street addresses, leading to approved fraudulent orders.
Key Problems Reported:
Transactions show “green” overall fraud status but contain red alerts for address mismatches in detailed analysis
Multiple merchants report actual fraud losses ($5,000+ in one case) from orders with false billing addresses
Additional fraud indicators (invalid contact info, IP address 346 miles from shipping location) still result in approved transactions
Merchants face chargeback fees on top of lost merchandise and revenue
Current Status:
The discussion remains unresolved with no official solution provided. One merchant is exploring third-party apps for additional purchase review, as Shopify’s native fraud detection appears insufficient. The fundamental question—why billing addresses are collected if not fully verified—remains unanswered.
Summarized with AI on October 29.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
We see a red alert on transactions through Shop Pay sometimes, “Billing street address doesn’t match credit card’s registered address”, however the transaction is approved. When we contact the customer, they don’t know what the problem is and Shopify shows the overall transaction in “Green” with no fraud indication. It is when we look at the detailed fraud analysis that we see the red alert.
Why is the transaction being approved if the customer is putting in the wrong billing address? Would that not automatically cause it to be declined?
Why is Shopify only verifying the postal code on the billing address? It seems this will increase fraud risk to your Shopify stores.
We are about to cancel an unrelated order that was approved with no fraud risk but showed wrong registered address and also showed the IP address was 346 miles from the shipping address. The customer phone and email was invalid, so it was obviously fraud. Shop Pay, however, approved the transaction and now my company has to cover the cancellation fee.
You are allowing fraudulent transactions to be approved as the system is handled right now. Why is it set up this way?
We were just defrauded of 5,000USD thanks to Shopify accepting a false billing address.
Why even ask the billing address if you don’t care it’s totally false? Is it crazy to assume that Shopify would check that it matches the address on the card before processing the payment?
We have a similar situation. 3 fraud chargebacks because Shopify approved them without matching billing addresses. We are just out the money and our product. There were zero fraud indicators on 2 of these orders. And the cherry on top is we get a little extra fee each time. What can be done? I’m looking into adding an app to review purchases since Shopify can’t seem to do it.
Did you ever find a solution to bypass this? Client experience these exact situations when testing orders. Would hate to launch without this being resolved
