MSE News: 'Computer says no' address snag kills online discounts

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Hundreds of thousands of consumers could miss out on cheap online deals where Royal Mail has not registered their full address, meaning applicants fail a credit check. But high street giants and major retailers often hinder matters by failing to ..."

Read the full story:
'Computer says no' address snag kills online discounts

Bob_the_Saver

MSE_Guy wrote: »

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Hundreds of thousands of consumers could miss out on cheap online deals where Royal Mail has not registered their full address, meaning applicants fail a credit check. But high street giants and major retailers often hinder matters by failing to ..."

Read the full story:
'Computer says no' address snag kills online discounts

We lived in a small village with just one road which had no name. Some sites would just not accept that it had no name. Some would work if you put 'It has no F***ing name' as part of the address, (always made the postman smile) some just wouldn't accept the fact even if their site had found the address from the Royal mail database.

Snakeeyes21

MSE_Guy wrote: »

"Hundreds of thousands of consumers could miss out on cheap online deals where Royal Mail has not registered their full address, meaning applicants fail a credit check. But high street giants and major retailers often hinder matters by failing to ..."

Really this is news? not just some old shoit dug out from the bin and recycled :rotfl: its nothing new

The clue is in the word news, yes MSE news person, its meant to be new, the news team really are scraping the barrel on this one, Martin on GMTV in the morning by any chance?

corbyboy

Why does this problem even exist? It's so silly.

Who's idea was it to have 2 incomplete databases rather than 1 complete one?

LilacPixie

not a new problem. I live in a purpose built 1920's flat. According to electoral roll, house deeds etc address is 2/2 1f Beach Crescent ( street made up) but according to Royal mail main data base it's 1f Beach Crescent which causes no ends of hassles with ordering things online and using my debit card. My bank recognises my address as 2/2 1f but many websites like play.com or amazon don't so often orders are rejected.

emg

I live in a conversion that was made into flats in 1985. The address comes up on most databases but I have had problems with Vodaphone (cancelled my order as my card address did not match the address on their database - didnt tell me until 8 days later) and also with the catalogue company Very. I wanted to order something from Very but the website wouldnt accept my address. When I tried to order by phone instead, they told me that they still could not take my order as my address wasnt on their system and they couldnt override it, there was no way I could buy anything from them!

Joe_Bloggs

I can find my address via the Royal Mail 'find an address from a postcode' facility. Here. There are are roughly fifty addresses for my post code. Unfortunately Many on-line organizations want you find your address from a database based upon your postcode. Tescos was my latest effort. They seem to only allow me to pick my address from the first line up to the first comma. Thus there are a lots of FlatA, FlatB, FlatC, Flat1, Flat2, etc, etc to guess from.

In the end it is the consumer who gets to test and iron out the bugs in the database. If you do not complain it will never be fixed. If the post office can get it right then there are no excuses for anyone else. I think it is better to have one common database for addresses rather than have organizations try to cobble together their own version.

J_B.

imcat

It is not just flats that have this issue.

I frequently find my credit card rejected when online shopping simply because I have no house number and just a house name. I live in a detached house that exists in all Royal Mail databases but this does not help.

The rejection is caused by the PROTX s/w some retailers use to do address validation. PROTX will always return address validation failure if the validation settings the retailer are using have been set to maximum and no house number is present. PROTX recommend the settings are not set to max to avoid this but some still set it up incorrectly. O2, Jual Domestic are few amongst many I remember with this problem. The only way around the issue I have found is to use a debit card which seems to have a lower level of address validation.

matty_art

Had this problem with Sky but I live in a new block of flats with a communal dish. Sky however won't allow online orders for shared dishes, so missed out on some significant cashback.

whitfreak

It is a irritating thing. I'd love to know how much extra the post office charge for the second fuller database. As I have been assured that my address is in that one, yet I have not seen a single thing online use it.

Most iritating thing is that the electrol role is probably more accurate as a list of addresses, so why cant they use that instead..

Jenna_of_Usk

My neighbour wanted to buy a standard size fridge & take it home in her car (i.e. didn't want delivery). The large electrical retailer wouldn't accept her address as there's no street name & refused to sell her the fridge, so she spent her money elsewhere. Also, we couldn't get an Experian report online for the same reason.