Really, does the billing address matter?
This is a very important question that seeks clarity, especially if you submitted the billing information incorrectly.
And I’m suspecting that you’ve submitted the wrong billing address before coming to ask if the billing address matters.
After reading through this post, you will get to find out the importance of billing addresses when you are shopping online.
One important thing you must note is that a billing address is a credit card-related address.
So you are seeing that in one of the form fields because you are trying to buy with your credit card and the billing address is one of the required details.
While shopping online with the wrong billing address, your order could be delayed or canceled.
Most of the time, the merchant will inform you about the wrong details supplied and you will be handed the chance of modifying the information.
Once this is checked and everything is good, your order can be processed.
What a billing address is
Getting to know what a billing address is will give you a better understanding of it.
Then you can decide whether or not to leave it blank or fill out incorrect details.
As said earlier, this address is related to your preferred form of payment which in most cases is your debit or credit card.
Someone using PayPal for a quick checkout will likely not go through the process of filling out the billing address information.
That is why I said it is synonymous with credit or debit card transactions.
This address is where merchants send your bank statements and bills and they also use it to verify the authorization of each transaction on the card.
The billing addresses must match those on file with the card-issuing bank, otherwise, most of your online orders may not go through.
In a case where there is a change of address of the cardholder, the billing address must be updated to match the new address.
This can be done by simply reaching out to the card-issuing bank.
Also, your shipping and billing address must match.
When there is any form of discrepancies in any of these addresses, you may likely go through an additional verification process to validate your order.
Here is what happens when you supply a wrong billing address
The most common consequence of supplying a wrong billing address is order cancelation.
Most merchants do verify this information even before placing or accepting your order.
Should in case there is any mismatch, you will get a notification urging your to update the information so your order can be processed.
If you receive a notification that your order has been canceled, you must generate and submit a new order with updated billing information.
Why is a billing address required?
There are numerous reasons why your retailer may require this information.
Here are a few of them:
- More contact information is better should there be any issue with the order.
- It’s helpful to know more about the purchaser for demographic purposes.
- When submitting a transaction to a merchant gateway, it’s frequently used (i.e. the people processing the transaction). They utilize that information to determine whether a transaction is likely to be fraudulent when speaking with the card processor. Take, for instance, if a restaurant employee gets credit card information, they will most likely get the 16-digit card number, expiration, CVV, and name on the card, but not the billing address.
In summary, your billing address is important in that it should match the credit card information you supply as payment.
Now that you know all of these, does the billing address still matter to you?
Leave a comment and let’s interact.