Risk Manager Payment Guide

What do the sections in the Risk Manager payment card mean?

Here is the payment card info you will see displayed in Risk Manager. 

What is a Billing/Delivery mismatch?

A billing delivery mismatch usually happens when the postcode entered by the buyer on an online payment card information form does not match the postcode for the delivery address entered on the form.

Here are the different possibilities that can cause billing/delivery mismatches in Risk Manager:

Key:

Delivery postcode form: Customer manually enters the delivery postcode in a form on the website. 

Payment information form postcode: Customer manually enters the payment information, including the postcode attached to their card. This postcode is identical to what the bank has on file for the card. 

Billing same as delivery: Customer can tick this optional tick box that is (sometimes) shown on some eCommerce websites.

Billing info form postcode: Customer manually enters their billing postcode in a form on the website.

Why does my payment say ‘match’ on the website but not in Risk Manager?

When Risk Manager is analysing online payments, it looks at two specific forms: the delivery form and the payment card information form. Risk Manager does not take into account the information filled in the billing form. This can sometimes cause a discrepancy between what Square views as a mismatch and what an eCommerce business would view as a mismatch.

To enter information in the billing form, sometimes a customer is given the option to select the ‘billing is same as delivery’ tick box.

If the customer ticks the tick box to say that delivery and billing match:

• In this case, if the postcode on the customer payment card matches the delivery postcode, then Risk Manager will show a match.

• If the customer enters a different postcode on the payment information form to the one on the delivery information form, Risk Manager will show a billing/delivery mismatch, even if the customer ticks ‘delivery and billing match’.

If the customer does not select the tick box and manually enters their information:

• If a customer does not click the tick box and manually enters a postcode in the shipping form that matches the postcode in the payment information form, then Risk Manager will show a match, even if the postcode they enter in the billing form is different.

• If the customer does not click the tick box, and manually enters matching postcodes in the billing and delivery form, but the postcode is different from that of the payment information form, then Risk Manager will show a mismatch, even though the eCommerce website might say ‘match’.

Why does Risk Manager not check the postcode in the billing address form?

Risk Manager does not rely on the billing address form for several reasons, the most important being that the billing postcode entered on the payment information form is a better indicator of potential fraud. Whether or not a website has a separate billing form is dependent on the checkout experience of each website. 

While we do not use the billing address form to calculate risk match/mismatch, you can still see that information as appears in the customer details card. 

What is an AVS mismatch? 

An AVS match occurs if the customer entered a postcode for their billing address matches the postcode that the bank has on file.

However, Square uses the postcode in the payment information form as the billing postcode (instead of the billing form). We then compare that information to what the bank has on file. If it does not match, then Risk Manager displays an AVS mismatch.

Here are the different possibilities that can cause AVS mismatches in Risk Manager: