AVS doesn't work all that well outside the U.S. (Amex declines it outright) And services that do work outside are often value added (read: expensive) and for businesses that primarily cater to U.S. customers, isn't worth the price. AVS isn't just a "bank service". It's only available to merchants that use a gateway that supports it (same for CVV/2) :
https://support.mivamerchant.com/supportsuite/index.php?/Kno...
And of those gateways, some don't support AVS outside mainland U.S. or only partially.
Those businesses aren't "losing money" by not catering to you. On the contrary, they're saving quite a bit by focusing on local customers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System
AVS doesn't work all that well outside the U.S. (Amex declines it outright) And services that do work outside are often value added (read: expensive) and for businesses that primarily cater to U.S. customers, isn't worth the price. AVS isn't just a "bank service". It's only available to merchants that use a gateway that supports it (same for CVV/2) : https://support.mivamerchant.com/supportsuite/index.php?/Kno...
And of those gateways, some don't support AVS outside mainland U.S. or only partially.
Those businesses aren't "losing money" by not catering to you. On the contrary, they're saving quite a bit by focusing on local customers.