Address Verification – Helping Businesses Reduce Chargebacks

The constantly skyrocketing digital scams have enforced businesses to practice effective customer verification measures. Companies can only have streamlined processes and that is by identifying their consumers. The rising cases of chargeback and other illegal actions of imposters have drawn the attention of enterprises on ID verification protocols and address verification of the customers. 

The procedure through which customers’ addresses are verified before making any online transaction is called address verification. It is carried out to make sure that only the legitimate consumers are making the transaction. Online address verification consequently verifies the ID of the consumer.  

How is it Performed?

It completes in 3 simple steps:

• Submitting an image

In this step, the customers are needed to submit their image holding their identity document. The customer’s picture is cross-matched against the image present on the identity document. 

• Uploading the secondary document 

Once the customer submits his picture holding an ID document, the process of online address verification requires the customer to upload a secondary document possessing the official or residential address. The information from the secondary document is fetched by OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. 

• Verifying the Address 

After identifying the address of the customer, the end results are uploaded to the back office and disclosed on the consumers’ screen.  Verifying the address of the customer, the final results are shown through Application Programming Interface  (API) on the back office. 

Why is it imperative to Verify an Address?  

Address verification can be performed on a lot of ID documents. Among them are Passports, ID documents, driving licenses, credit cards to name a few. After uploading the document, the system checks its authenticity by examining the type, customers’ name, address, date of issuance of the documents.  

The information is fetched from identity documents by using the OCR app. The identification measures then look for the authenticity of the data included in the  documents. While checking the authenticity, the system also examines if the document is photoshopped. In case of fake, or photoshopped ID documents the software will quickly generate the alert.  

Mitigate Chargebacks

Reducing the ever-increasing cases of digital scams is the primary focus of businesses. The main aim of opting for any verification measure is to avoid the chances of scams. Enterprises now carry out address verification on their consumers to make sure that they do not face chargeback scams. Banks and other financial institutions have to perform certain ID checks to verify their customers’ addresses.

Minimizes the cases of Returned Shipments

Returned shipments are a nightmare for companies. It proves to be the biggest loss for businesses. Enterprises encounter this scam when they do not perform address verification of their customers. The only way firms can reduce returned shipments fraud is by carefully looking into the matter that they are delivering the products to the right address. 

Compliance 

Regulatory bodies have designed certain laws for businesses to abide by.  These compliance protocols require companies to verify the customers before onboarding them. The ID verification measures make sure that businesses have legitimate consumers for their products and services, which ultimately saves them from facing any adverse conditions in the future. 

Address Verification – Industrial Use Cases

There are many sectors that are taking full advantage of this service, a few of them are the following: 

• E-commerce Sector  

Businesses that offer their services on online platforms take it as a keystone for success to minimize the cases of digital scams. Any firm working digitally makes sure to identify the ID of their customers. This helps them in a lot of various ways. It secures the companies from providing their services to the fraudsters. The other thing address verification offers to businesses is assisting them in providing a better customer experience. Consumers enjoy robust services and it enhances their trust in the businesses. Henceforth, it is imperative for vendors to validate addresses in order to mitigate scams.  

• Financial institutions 

This industry is a prominent user of ID verification systems. Imposters deploy inaccurate addresses to develop fake bank accounts that they use to carry out illegal activities such as money laundering and financing terrorist activities. 

EndNote  

Companies need to verify the addresses of their consumers to control frauds like transaction scams and chargebacks. Address verification measures make sure that businesses deliver products to the addresses that really exist. The E-commerce sector, banks, other financial institutions, and many more industries are deploying this verification measure to authenticate the identity of customers.