Though the checks can vary between card companies, AVS typically verifies only the numeric portions of a cardholder's billing address, resulting in certain anomalies like apartment numbers, which can cause false declines.
[citation needed] For example, if the address is 101 Main Street, Highland, CA 92346, in the United States, AVS will check 101 and 92346.
AVS is a service to combat fraudulent activity for card-not-present transactions by cross-referencing the address provided by a cardholder to a merchant with the card issuer's records.
Cardholders with a bank that does not support AVS may receive an error from online stores due to the lack of verification.
As a result, the held funds may be subtracted from the customer's available balance, and an online statement may reflect the authorization request which might be mistaken for an actual charge.