Ask HN: Does Verizon use my GPS position to verify credit card purchases?

2 points by nogridbag 11y ago ↗ HN

For some time now, the official Android Google+ app has conflicted with a Verizon service "vzwavsservice", causing it to crash on startup. The current workaround is to uninstall or revert Google+ to its factory version. For me personally, this happened with both my old Samsung Galaxy S3 and my new LG G3 (but Googling around it seems to happen to all Verizon branded Android phones, Galaxy S5, etc).

I was curious what function "vzwavsservice" actually performed, and after searching I found the following copy-pasted on several sites:

"VZWAVSSERVICE is the Verizon Address Verification System Service. Banks use the AVS Service to verify your address when you make a purchase with your credit or debit card. An AVS authentication failure can result in a credit card sale being denied, and the sale and associated funds put on hold until the bank is able to verify that the person attempting to make the purchase is in fact the card holder (by matching the address entered to the billing address the bank has on file)"

This was news to me. Can anyone confirm that this is accurate? I'm curious if T-Mobile and AT&T do this as well.

3 comments

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jacquesm 11y ago ↗

AVS has nothing to do with GPS. AVS is about the home address registered with the card, not about your current location.

nogridbag 11y ago ↗

Thanks. I found this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System

I still do not understand why this service is running on my phone (versus on the bank's/credit card backend servers). Is it used only for mobile payments?

I don't know. Typically having the SIM/subscription data should be enough for your provider and they don't need anything on your phone for that. AVS on the other side is usually something done by processing data that you enter into a form, that data is then compared to what your bank/the credit card company have on you.