If you’re reading this, chances are you tried to buy something here and received this error message: “The provided address does not match the billing address for the cardholder.” What do you do now?
Please do not continue to submit the transaction without fixing the error! Call us at 281-369-3337 during normal business hours (8 am-5 pm Mondays-Fridays, 7:30 am-sunset on weekends) so we can help you with your payment and get you in the air!
What’s going on here?
First of all, this message is telling you that either the numeric part of the street address you submitted at checkout (such as the 123 of “123 My Street”) or your zip code did not match the address information on file with your credit card issuing bank. All declined transactions tie up funds on your card as “pending charges” for a few business days, so you already have the charge amount tied up as a pending charge. If you continue to resubmit the transaction with incorrect information, it will keep declining due to address mismatch and each attempt will result in a new pending charge. For example, if your $200 order is declined five times, you’ll have $1000 in pending charges on your card. No bueno!
Wait, what? Wasn’t the charge declined? How am I still being charged?
Charges you see on your card after a transaction has been declined are credit card authorizations, rather than completed charges; the money is being held by your bank pending approval or cancellation of those payments. This is how all online purchases work. Within a short time, the transaction is approved and completed, or declined and cancelled. If it was declined, the pending charge will disappear completely from your account within a few business days.
Not all online merchants require that the billing address submitted with a transaction match the one on file with the bank. We have chosen to do so to reduce fraudulent charges, protecting our customers and our business. The down side is when customers make a mistake in the billing address they submit and accidentally tie up funds on their cards as pending charges due to the mistake.
Quite often, we find people experiencing address mismatch declines have simply forgotten to change their billing address with their bank after a move. On rare occasion, the address on file with the bank has an error in it. Regardless of the reason for the mismatch, your purchase will not go through with the information you’ve provided. Please verify your address information is correct and try again online if you prefer, or you can simply show up during our normal business hours with a card or cash to pay on site.
