BREAKING: USPS slashes address verification to 60 addresses/hour. What now?

RecommendedHow to build and validate address lists for direct mail marketingDecember 4, 2025 USPS API rate limit capped at 60 requests per hour: How to prepare and why many are choosing SmartyDecember 3, 2025 Pinpoint 2025: Day 1 recapNovember 28, 2025

Using USPS address verification to prevent fraud

Using USPS address verification to prevent fraud image

Updated July 15, 2025

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Address validation

Address verification

Customer experience

Using USPS address verification to prevent fraud image

While it's an unfortunate truth of of today's e-commerce world, it is one that cannot be ignored: Fraud is ever-present in online transactions. The expense of unnecessary shipping costs and human resources, disgruntled customers, and the time it takes to investigate disputes adds up. And the damage to a company's brand may result in untold amounts of lost sales.

Using an address verification service (or AVS) as one of the tools in your fraud management toolbox is a smart and cost-effective move.

What is AVS?

A USPS address verification system is a software-based system that compares a submitted address to an authenticated USPS address that is stored in a database. If the submitted address closely matches the authenticated address in the database, then the submitted address is deemed to be valid. If the submitted address does not closely match the address in the database, it is flagged as invalid.

Using AVS to prevent fraud

Using AVS data in conjunction with a customer's IP address can be a useful way to evaluate the validity of an online order. There are a number of services that can provide you the geographic location that corresponds to the IP address of the customer's computer.

Google address lookup

When the customer submits their billing address or shipping address, the AVS will verify if those addresses are valid.

IP location

If the IP address' geographic location appears to be in reasonable proximity to the customers' AVS verified address, it could be reasonable to assume that the order is valid. If the IP address is located a considerable distance away from the AVS address, there is a possibility that the order could be fraudulent. Further verification of the validity of the customer's order could be merited.

Choosing the right system

While an address verification service should not be the only tool used in fraud prevention, it can be a useful one. Various USPS address verification services are available for use by ecommerce sites. In addition, Smarty provides free address lookups for ecommerce sites to test their system.

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How to build and validate address lists for direct mail marketing

Looking to build a direct mail marketing campaign? You’ve come to the right spot. Before you can send marketing mail like a pro, you’ll need to build a list of verified addresses. Otherwise, frequent misdeliveries and costly redeliveries can take the wind right out of your campaign’s sails. On top of that, a bad address list could lead you to miss out on mind-blowing postal discounts. 😱Don’t let bad addresses capsize your campaign. With a US Master Address List of over 210 million verified addresses—available by state, county, or nationwide—and shipshape US Address Verification, you can construct new lists or clean active ones with the swagger of a seasoned captain.

USPS API rate limit capped at 60 requests per hour: How to prepare and why many are choosing Smarty

Because who doesn’t love juggling one more thing during the holiday season…? A major shift in the address-verification landscape is approaching at the beginning of the new year. On January 25, 2026, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will officially retire its long-standing Web Tools APIs, a free API that previously allowed for approximately 5 address lookups per transaction. This includes the legacy USPS Address Information APIs that many organizations have depended on for years. Under USPS’s new API structure, the default quota for many services, including the Addresses API, is 60 requests per hour.

Pinpoint 2025: Day 1 recap

For two days, Smarty users gathered together with other address data experts for Pinpoint, Smarty’s first virtual user conference, where developers, industry experts, and product specialists talked all things addresses and pulled back the curtain on address data solutions. Attendees asked questions about cloud-based software, the impact of accurate address data on fintech and insurance companies, and the ROI of good address data across all industries. Plus, attendees got to take a peek behind the scenes and see what makes Smarty’s address data solutions tick.

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