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Another annoying fact about billing address verification is that it’s mostly unique to the US, and so if you try to use your US card on an international website

Another annoying fact about billing address verification is that it’s mostly unique to the US, and so if you try to use your US card on an international website that doesn’t specifically support US cards, the transaction will fail due to lacking a billing address.

vinay427 3y ago
This is not universally true. All of the US cards I’ve used on non-US websites, probably multiple times a week in multiple European countries for years now, have worked either without a billing address (if the website doesn’t support it) or sometimes even with an incorrect billing address, such as a non-US address for US card. Most websites in western European countries seem to support it so this usually doesn’t come up but I’ve never had a problem at least with my current cards when it does. The only time I did have a problem is when no foreign card was accepted by the payment processor, not due to verification issues.
- zinekeller 3y ago
  I think that that both of you have good points, but missed some nuance. Most US-to-US transactions verify cards using the ZIP code (in this context, called AVS or the address verification system) and the card number. Most retailers do verify if the CVC and expiration date are also correct, but international retailers might be surprised that you can enter 12/99 and 000 and still pass due to this oddity (https://support.stripe.com/questions/charge-succeeded-despite-cvc-or-zip-check-mismatch https://support.stripe.com/questions/charge-succeeded-despit...). This is also the reason why US cards are favored by criminals (because the security in them are, to be frank, insufficient). In contrast, European retailers do use the expiry date and CVC to verify the card, and some even take this further with 3DS verification (regardless of the origin of the card). In practice, using a US card in Europe does not really cause problems except a) when the retailer only accepts locally-issued cards (or EU cards only as may be the case), b) when your bank does not support 3DS, or c) you did not set a PIN code / retrieve your PIN code from your bank.
sss111 3y ago
I use my american amex card almost on a weekly basis to make payments for websites in India (Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit etc) and have had zero issues. It just defaults to use Safekey instead of billing verificaion: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/security-center/safekey/ https://www.americanexpress.com/us/security-center/safekey/ I think you do have a point though because I've had a ton of issues using my apple card on websites internationally.
0x38B 3y ago
Apple Pay can be a godsend here. I’ve used it where none of my other cards would work (1). 1: for example, topping up the balance for my cellular service with a European carrier.
Gigachad 3y ago
Made me realise that I've been seeing Billing address and shipping address on forms my whole life and never stopped to wonder what the billing address was actually for since it doesn't do anything here.

vinay427 3y ago

This is not universally true. All of the US cards I’ve used on non-US websites, probably multiple times a week in multiple European countries for years now, have worked either without a billing address (if the website doesn’t support it) or sometimes even with an incorrect billing address, such as a non-US address for US card. Most websites in western European countries seem to support it so this usually doesn’t come up but I’ve never had a problem at least with my current cards when it does. The only time I did have a problem is when no foreign card was accepted by the payment processor, not due to verification issues.

zinekeller 3y ago
I think that that both of you have good points, but missed some nuance. Most US-to-US transactions verify cards using the ZIP code (in this context, called AVS or the address verification system) and the card number. Most retailers do verify if the CVC and expiration date are also correct, but international retailers might be surprised that you can enter 12/99 and 000 and still pass due to this oddity (https://support.stripe.com/questions/charge-succeeded-despite-cvc-or-zip-check-mismatch https://support.stripe.com/questions/charge-succeeded-despit...). This is also the reason why US cards are favored by criminals (because the security in them are, to be frank, insufficient). In contrast, European retailers do use the expiry date and CVC to verify the card, and some even take this further with 3DS verification (regardless of the origin of the card). In practice, using a US card in Europe does not really cause problems except a) when the retailer only accepts locally-issued cards (or EU cards only as may be the case), b) when your bank does not support 3DS, or c) you did not set a PIN code / retrieve your PIN code from your bank.

sss111 3y ago

I use my american amex card almost on a weekly basis to make payments for websites in India (Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit etc) and have had zero issues. It just defaults to use Safekey instead of billing verificaion: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/security-center/safekey/ https://www.americanexpress.com/us/security-center/safekey/ I think you do have a point though because I've had a ton of issues using my apple card on websites internationally.

0x38B 3y ago

Apple Pay can be a godsend here. I’ve used it where none of my other cards would work (1). 1: for example, topping up the balance for my cellular service with a European carrier.

Gigachad 3y ago

Made me realise that I've been seeing Billing address and shipping address on forms my whole life and never stopped to wonder what the billing address was actually for since it doesn't do anything here.