Knowledgebase: Orders

What is FraudWatch and How Does it Work?

 

Important Note
As of version 11.3.6, Fraudwatch scoring is no longer being offered for new accounts. However, Fraudwatch Screening Rules are still available.

Legacy users with existing Fraudwatch subscription plans will keep their service at its current level and price.

The information in this article is intended for current Fraudwatch subscription holders.

Shift4Shop's Fraudwatch Program is a special service which actively collects data points associated with your store's orders to provide you with a fraud risk score on the order itself. The information collected includes certain attributes like the shopper's IP address, banking information, mailing address and other factors which are then weighed to provide the risk score.

The risk score is classified into three different color levels of risk with a numbering system to further refine the order's fraud classification. These levels are:

  • Green
    the order is generally safe and you may process the order with low risk to you
  • Yellow
    Some of the data points on the order may be potentially fraudulent, so you may want to proceed with caution
  • Red
    The order is at high risk for being fraudulent and you should carefully consider whether to process it or not.

How do I check an order's FraudWatch score?

When viewing an individual order in your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager, you will see a section towards the top of the that contains the order's FraudWatch Data.

At first, the order may not have any FraudWatch checks associated with it. To view the order's FraudWatch Data:

  1. Click on the "Refresh Fraudwatch" button.
  2. Then confirm the call

Note
Next to the Fraudwatch Score, you will see a section labeled "Community Alert"

The "Community Alert" feature is an additional component of the FraudWatch Program which links to a collective database of any shoppers the Shift4Shop merchant community (your peers) have ever reported as fraudulent. If a specific shopper's order is ever reported as fraud by you or any other Shift4Shop FraudWatch user, the community alert will list this on any subsequent orders that the shopper places on any Shift4Shop powered store thereafter. This is a great way to help you and your fellow merchants remain aware of repeat offenders.



What if I don't want to use FraudWatch on my store?

The Shift4Shop FraudWatch program is enabled by default on your Shift4Shop store. However, if you'd like to turn it off, you may do so at any time by following these steps:

  1. Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager
  2. Using the left hand navigatio menu, go to Modules
  3. Use the search bar to locate the "FraudWatch" module
  4. Uncheck the "Enable" checkbox
  5. Save your changes

You can also use the same steps outlined above to turn on Fraudwatch at your leisure.

Note
If you would like to cancel your Fraudwatch Subscription, please click on the Services tab found in your store's My Billing section.


Phone Orders & Fraudwatch

When using the Phone Order system, please be aware that the orders placed in this fashion will likely score a higher Fraudwatch score than normal orders.

This is because one of the parameters used for the fraud watch score is the distance between the customer's destination and billing address compared to the order origin's IP address. In other words, the amount of distance between the IP address of where the order was placed and where it is being billing and shipped to. This distance is something that could be indicative of a potentially fraudulent order.

A phone order is placed by you directly from the Online Store Manager, so the origin IP Address is your network IP. Meanwhile, the customer's billing and shipping address is far different than the origin IP address. So the Fraudwatch score for these orders may be skewed because of this.


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