Re: Authorize.net and AVS
I tried a 0 dollar transaction at authorize using the virtual terminal. It got rejected because the amount entered was not valid. I did successfully put through a 1 cent transaction using my own credit card though (there goes another 27 cents...).
There is no "AVS" only transaction either, at least not with Authorize.
If I turn off AVS, not only will my fraud go way up, but the transaction fee per charge also goes up. This is because without AVS, my transactions get charged the "non-qualified" rate, which has a much higher fee.
The money does typically get put back in the customers account with 2-3 business days, but as I mentioned, banks are hitting customers with overdraft charges too now. At the very least, I get phone calls from angry or suspicious customers thinking we are one of those shady businesses. At the worst, well, it can get pretty ugly.
If there are other payment gateways out there that do a better job, I'd be glad to hear about them. Other than this problem, I have found authorize.net to actually be pretty good. They have good APIs and reports and we are fully integrated with them, which makes things generally smooth. I can also have users with different roles, and change settings on the fly. Integrating payment gateways in real time is not a trivial task, and switching is probably more painful than the pain I am dealing with now regarding AVS.
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