Is anyone else having a problem w/ authorize.net,

I am getting declines w/ only reason being:
Security Information
CVV Response: Unavailable
AVS Street Response: Unavailable
AVS Postal Code Response: Unavailable

Customer A:
Order 2046 & 2047 declined, then she tried again Order 2048 and got approved (all same cc info, all one minute apart)

Customer B:
Order 2050 declined, then person tried one minute later and it got approved Order 2051 (again all same cc info).

I believe there is a setting on authorize.net to decide to decline if response unavailable, is this safe to change to approve if it's just bec. response is unavail? Never ran into this issue in a year & a half of having this site but remember a couple others over past month or two as well. Also wonder what customer is seeing, does it just look like it didn't go through so they hit send again?

No it's not safe when unavailable because it isn't verifying the information. It's usually not an authorize.net error, it's usually the issuing bank that is not returning the information for Authnet to verify. If you disable authnet when unavailable its the same as turning off address verification completely. Remember that Authnet is not the only one that runs maintenance, the issuing banks do this as well and that's usually when you'll get an error like this. If you continue to get these I'd call authnet and see if it's something on their end but they boast a 99.9 uptime.

Okay, thank you!!!

Not sure why, but we are getting a lot more of these than we used to.

I'll give you my Two-Cents... business is a risk. Everything about it has an opportunity to make or lose money. The more that you inconvenience customers in the pursuit of a risk free transaction the more you risk losing the sales altogether. You need to decide your own tolerance for risk on this issue. I have selected the setting so that failed AVS calls do not get declined. I did this because:

• it is not all of the time so most of my transactions are being verified.
• my average order value is relatively low so the per incident exposure is low.
• my charge back history is just one this year and it wasn't address related.
• my customers don't understand my avs problems so I try not to make it their problem.

Now, I'm not saying that you should do this. Like I said, I sell inexpensive supplies. I'd have a different opinion if I was selling $200 customized jackets or $500 car covers or highly competitive HD TVs. If I get burned once or twice I'll rethink my position. I made the change several months ago and so far it has been the right decision for me. More transactions go through smoothly and I haven't been burned on the exposure.

Please don't take this as a flame post. I fully agree with the people who have not changed the setting. It's their company and their decisions and I don't think they are wrong. I only posted this as a different opinion so that you could see why I chose to make this change and to let you know that FOR ME it has been a positive change.

Thank you! I appreciate the additional feedback.