Fraud Risk Score

Question

Hi, we have a transaction we are questioning. It is a sale to Kristina Warner from 8/8. The miles from the ip address to the billing address appear to be 1200+. How do we further investigate????

Answer

The Fraud Risk Score that was added to Store Manager has been a extremely helpful to many retailers.  However, it occasionally does cause some false-positives because people often shop while on vacation or traveling, which can increase the fraud score.  Therefore, the score should only be used as a gauge or warning, especially when you see a higher fraud score.  When higher fraud scores are encountered you need to do a bit more investigation.  The following blog article has been writing on this subject:

• Know the Fraud Warning Signs

Additionally, it appears the billing address is 628 miles away from where this consumer placed the order.  As noted above this can happen when customers are traveling or on vacation.

Please let us know if you have any more questions.  Thank you.

Date Created: 08/10/13

Question

We got an order with a 92.50% Fraud risk. We have never had that high of a risk before and am not sure what to do with it? I looked in the details and don't really understand what it all means! It is order number #46902580. Can you please assist us with this?

Answer

The Fraud Risk Score is a tool to help you manage the risk associated with online purchases.  As explained above it does not guarantee an order is legitimate or fraudulent.  Instead it is meant to help you assess the riskiness of a potential order.  Regardless of the score you should always do you due diligence to ensure an order is not fraudulent. This of course starts with some common sense and looking for some fraud warning signs as described above.  Of course you should always be more leery of first-time customers, especially when the Fraud Risk Score is higher and they have a larger than average order amount.

Yes, the technical terms in the Fraud Risk Score window can be intimidating.  Here are some of the more useful items to look at in this score:

• Distance

  • The distance shows in miles how far away the consumer was from their billing address when they placed their order.  This is important because many fraudulent orders are placed overseas but list a US-based postal address.  Of course people do a lot of ordering while traveling or on vacation so don't be alarmed if this number is high because they simply may not be around their home when they placed their order.

• Country Name

  • The name of the country the consumer was in when they placed their online order.

• Country Match

  • This is a simple Yes or No.  Yes means the country they were in when they placed their order matches the consumer's billing address.

• High Risk Country

  • Some country simply have more fraud than others.  If you see a Yes in this column then you need to be extra careful when fulfilling the order.

• Region

  • This will include the region, or state, where the order was placed.  This displays the international two-character code for Region.

• Region Name

  • This will include the region, or state, where the order was placed.  For US-based orders this will be one of the 50 States.

• City

  • This will include the city where the order was placed.  Again, for US-based orders you should see a familiar city name.

• Postal Code

  • This is the postal or zip code where the order was placed.  Of course if the consumer was traveling on business or pleasure when they placed their order, this zip code will not be same as their billing or shipping address.  In fact it is rarely the same because people's internet service providers often have a different zip code.

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The Fraud Risk Score and accompany supporting information may not be 100% accurate.  It is intended to help you gauge the likelihood of an order being fraudulent so you can do a more thorough investigation. This investigation includes some of the steps outlined above and verifying higher risk orders by emailing or calling the consumer.

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Date Created: 09/07/13