What Is Billing Information? Law & Legal Definition

The world of online purchases can be tricky.

With identity theft a real problem, banks are doing as much as they can to protect customers and businesses from any form of online fraud.

One such way is for the buyer to provide their billing information.

Whenever you’re making an online purchase, you will be asked for your billing information.

But what exactly is billing information? We’ll take a closer look at the definition and the different types of billing information.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is Billing Information?

What Is a Billing Address?

What Is the Difference Between a Billing Address and a Shipping Address?

What Is AVS?

Billing Information Breakdown

Key Takeaways

What Is Billing Information?

Billing information can be defined as any data that enables any person to access a customer or donor’s account.

These accounts could be a credit card, checking account, savings account or any similar account. It could also be access to your utility bills, mortgage loan account or your debit card.

A large part of keeping your information secure is by providing your billing address.

What Is a Billing Address?

In the context of your credit cards and debit cards, your billing address is the address associated with your account.

It is also the address that details where you’d like your bank to send your billing information.

Your billing address and other personal information is used to authorize new cardholders. It is also used to send important billing information.

If you request or apply for a new debit or credit card, it will also be sent to your billing address unless you stated otherwise.

What Is the Difference Between a Billing Address and a Shipping Address?

Your billing address and your shipping address have two separate functions. Although they are quite commonly confused with one another.

Credit or debit card statements, or any other billing information, will be sent to your billing address. Whereas things such as your online orders, packages or any other shipping products will be sent to your shipping address. They are quite often the same address.

Billing addresses can help to prevent identity theft via the Address Verification System, otherwise known as AVS.

What Is AVS?

AVS works to limit fraudulent charges during the checkout process. It works by comparing the card’s billing address to the shipping address on the purchase.

The AVS will then send a code to the merchant to determine whether or not your shipping address matches your billing address.

For example, let’s say someone steals your credit card information and attempts to buy a product and have it shipped to their address.

The hope is that either the merchant or AVS will notice that the stolen credit card’s billing address does not match the shipping address.

They will then decline the transaction and alert the card issuer. If you want to know the process, read our post on What Is an AVS Mismatch. It provides a detailed explanation along with ways to fix an AVS Mismatch Error for legitimate customers.

Billing Information Breakdown

Here is a breakdown of what makes up your billing information:

• Billing Contact – This is the name of your billing contact. This was to be the same name appearing on the account holder’s billing statement.
• Street Address – This is the street address of the billing contact. Again this has to be the same street address that appears on the account holder’s billing statement.
• City – The city of the billing contact.
• State/Province – The state of the billing contact.
• Zip/Postal Code – This is the zip or postal code of the billing contact.
• Phone Number – The phone number of the billing contact.
• Fax Number – The fax number of the billing contact. This tends to be an optional choice.
• Email Address – The email address of the billing contact.

Key Takeaways

Billing information is a key tool to help prevent fraud. It’s also important that you keep all of this information up-to-date.

If you don’t change your billing information when you move house, for example, you can delay being able to make online purchases and payments.

Being able to provide up-to-date, accurate information that both the supplier and your bank can verify is important. It helps to keep your money safe as well as whoever you are purchasing off of.

Are you looking for more business advice on everything from starting a new business to new business practices?

Then check out the FreshBooks resource hub.

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