Is the billing address actually relevant to online shopping?

Many shoppers turned to the online store for more locks, while the main streets were closed last year. If you are new to online shopping, you may have some questions about your financial security.

To be confident while browsing the web Black Friday oz Christmas shopping season, we have answered the main questions of readers about the protection of your data.

Is the billing address actually relevant to online payments?

Q: I regularly buy products online and have just found that I have entered the wrong billing address for my debit card in the last few months. Nevertheless, none of my payments were contested.

I thought the billing address was part of my identity verification, but does it really matter which address I entered?

BW, by email

Shopping online is easy, but in the age of convenience, many individuals are increasingly concerned about their financial security.

You might assume that without an invoicing address, it would be useless for online shopping if you lost your debit or credit card.

However, this does not seem to be the case, and in reality retailers are left to decide on the level of verification they will enforce.

The risk of fraud is not the only concern of the trader. They balance the risk of loss due to fraud with the cost of lost sales if their verification services deter people from making a purchase.

Some will give a higher level of priority to identity verification than others. This may vary depending on the price of the item in question, the device used to purchase it, and the customer history on the site.

There are also different levels of address verification verification can be used by retailers, depending on how much they want to spend.

Who is responsible if something goes wrong can also affect how accurately the details are checked.

If the transaction uses “3-D secure”, an additional level of security such as “Verified by Visa”, the responsibility is transferred to the card issuer. From a retailer’s perspective, if the card issuer accepts the loss, then they may be less concerned about checking the billing address.

After all, there is no hard and fast rule: it depends on the seller, the method of payment, the size of the transaction and more.