Let me weigh in a bit here. This is always a point of concern for online sellers and it would seem to be somewhat of a function of what was being sold - the type of customers one's site tends to attract, rather you ship internationally, etc. and perhaps your previous experience with bogus sales. In essence it is really dependent on what each shop is doing and wishes to do.
Here's some points of decision to consider:
1. Do you allow for gifts? If so, how would you accomodate your customer in that instance?
2. Do you have individual customers who might wish to have something shipped to their workplace?
3. Do you have business customers who might wish to have something shipped to their home?
It would seem to me that having the
option for the cart owner to limit the ability to ship to a different address
could be a good enhancement.
But ultimately the cart owner need to weigh the possibility of lost sales due to too stringent rules against the real loss that has been incurred by bogus orders.
In the case islandcd cited, perhaps having additional validation steps in the fulfillment process on certain dollar amounts with a different ship address could help manage the loss risk and not shut off gifts, etc.
1. Email the customer using the account information to verify the order and the shipping address.
2. Require a phone number on the account information and try and verify with phone number lookup
3. There are two phone numbers, one for VISA® and one for MasterCard, that you can call. These are automated and will supply you with the phone number for the issuing bank of the credit card. You can then call the issuing bank and request to do a name and address verification of the cardholder.
VISA® - (800) VISA-750
MasterCard - (800) MC-ASSIS
Note: these work for US cardholders, I don't know about non-US cards but one should be able to check with their card centers. If you validate the number with the bank, if there is a report of a card problem - they will let you know.
4. If not using PayPal, consider using PayPal with seller protection. If using PayPal, see how you can use Seller Protection - it has not additional fees for you, but there are some rules to follow.
In conclusion - might be nice to have the option for sellers who wish to limit to that, but overall it's really up to the seller to install processes to verify when they feel an order is questionable.
Just another cart user.
Lee