Fraud Analysis

Identifying Potentially Fraudulent Transactions

When processing payments online, it's important to know the common indicators of fraud so you can identify suspicious transactions and act accordingly.

Below are outlined questions you can ask yourself when determining whether a transaction is legitimate. 

Customer name

• Does the customer's name match the name on the card or account?

• Is the name misspelled?

Customer email

• Do the cardholder's name and email address align? For example, if the customer's name is Bob Smith, his email is more likely to be [email protected] than [email protected].

• Does the customer's email address have an old or common domain? Fraudsters tend to use domains like mail.com, inbox.com, outlook.com, yahoo.com, or juno.com, or domains that don't exist. It can also be suspicious if the email address includes a company name followed by a generic domain, like [email protected].

• Are there random characters in the customer's email address? If the email address aligns with the cardholder name, be wary of random characters in the suffix, such as [email protected]. Any string of 3 or more random alphanumeric characters could be cause for concern.

Contact information

• Has the phone number been provided?

• Is the phone number a landline? 

• Is the phone number working?

Billing & Delivery Address

• Using the addresses either together or separately can contribute to the investigation. Are the billing & delivert addressess different?

Transaction details

• Are you seeing an abnormally large number of transactions in a short period of time, especially for the same amount or from the same card brand? This is a common indicator of a carding attack.

• Is the transaction made outside the country? 

• Is there any gift message included in the order?

• Is the customer a first time shopper?

Background Check

• When faced with an order that appears to be high-risk, finding the customer online with an active social media account can lessen the risk of fraud. 

If you're trying to decide whether or not to refund a transaction that you believe might be fraudulent a good place to start is with the customer—you can try to contact them directly to confirm the details associated with the transaction. Fraudulent transactions typically do not have valid contact information associated with them, so it's an effective first step in deciding how to proceed.

If you are unable to contact the customer or you have confirmed your suspicion that the transaction is fraudulent, we suggest that you issue a void or refund to reduce the likelihood of chargebacks.