Fraud Control app

The Fraud Control app creates and displays a dashboard in your Shopify admin that displays analytics related to fraud or potential fraud on your store. This dashboard provides details on chargebacks, Shopify Protect, orders canceled due to fraud, and the general level of risk your store is exposed to.

You can install Fraud Control from the Shopify App Store. The Fraud Control app doesn't confilct with third-party fraud control applications, and doesn't affect your usage of other fraud apps.

Fraud Control is available to all store plans in locations where Shopify Payments is available. Some data isn't available unless you use Shopify Payments as your payment processor.

Fraud Control dashboard

After you install the Fraud Control app, you can view your dashboard by going in your Shopify admin to Apps > Fraud Control. The Fraud Control dashboard displays a dashboard with information on your level of risk due to fraud, including the following information:

  • Acceptance rate: The percentage of all orders in your chosen date range that are marked as low-risk or medium-risk by Shopify’s fraud analysis.
  • High risk orders: The percentage of all orders in your chosen date range that are marked as high-risk by Shopify’s fraud analysis.
  • Fraudulent chargebacks: The percentage of all chargebacks in your chosen date range that are marked as fraudulent.
  • Shopify Protect protection: The total value of all orders in your chosen date range that are protected from fraudulent chargebacks by Shopify Protect. This data is delayed by ten days to allow for fulfillment requirements to be met.
  • Shopify Protect coverage: The total value of all orders in your chosen date range that have been disputed and are protected by Shopify Protect.
  • Orders canceled due to fraud: The total value of all orders in your chosen date range that have been refunded by staff members or apps as a result of fraudulent activity.

If your store doesn't use Shopify Payments, then you have access only to data for Acceptance rate, High risk orders, and Orders canceled due to fraud.

The dashboard also displays whether these values have changed when compared to a selected comparison period.

If you are using Shopify Payments, then you can access your store's chargeback health status. The following levels are based on standards set by credit card companies:

  • Good standing: This status indicates that the number of chargebacks in your store is less than 0.4% of the total number of orders. Your store's level of risk is below average.
  • At risk: This status indicates that the number of chargebacks in your store is between 0.4% and 0.6% of the total number of orders. Your store's level of risk is average, and might indicate that your store is at risk due to fraudulent activity.
  • Elevated risk: This status indicates that the number of chargebacks in your store is more than 0.6% of the total number of orders. Your store's level of risk is higher than average, and might indicate that your store is at more risk than it should be.

To open an expanded view of any of these sections, click the chart icon in the section that you want to review.

Filter by date

You can choose the date range that you want information for. The default date range is 30 days.

Steps:

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Fraud Control.
  2. Click the date indicator.
  3. Choose the date range:
    • Click a date range option.
    • Choose a custom date range by selecting a start date and end date.
  4. Click Apply.

Comparison date range

The comparison date range is displayed next to the date range. The Fraud control app compares your current data to the data from the previous period of the same length.

For example, on May 8, 2023 you select Last 90 days as your date range. The data displayed on the dashboard is from February 7, 2023 to May 7, 2023. The comparison date range is the previous 90 days, from November 10, 2022 to February 6, 2023.

The comparison date range is determined by the date range that you select for your data, and can't be changed. However, if you want, you can remove the comparison.

Remove comparison date range

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Fraud Control.
  2. Click the Compare date range.
  3. Click No comparison.

Fraud Control checkout rules

Fraud Control checkout rules allow you to filter and block potentially-fraudulent orders. Based on a set of rules that you define, the app will block checkouts from becoming orders.

Fraud Control checkout rules can help to protect your business in several ways:

  • Add extra protection above and beyond what the built-in fraud analysis provides.
  • Create filters for emails.
  • Create filters for address attributes.
  • Create filters for IP addresses.

Set up rules

Rules need to be created carefully to make sure that they block fraud, but avoid blocking legitimate checkouts. These rules don’t guarantee that chargebacks won’t happen or guarantee against chargebacks on the store.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels.

  2. Click Fraud Control to open the app.

  3. Click Rules.

  4. Click Create rule.

  5. On the New Rule page, configure your rule in the Checkout conditions section. Every rule can be made up of one or more checkout conditions. For example, you can use both IP address as well as ZIP code to make a rule that will block orders with those specific conditions.

  6. The Rule name will update based on the checkout conditions used and cannot be edited.

  7. Once you’ve added all the fields you can click Save.

  8. This will automatically enable and activate the rule.

  9. (Optional) You can add notes or a description of the rule.

Deleting or deactivating a rule

  1. From the Rules page click on the checkbox of the rules that you want to deactivate or delete.
  2. Click on delete or deactivate and this will immediately deactivate or delete the rule.

Fraud Control checkout rules FAQ

Can Fraud Control checkout rules prevent fraud entirely?

No. Fraud Control can't guarantee that you'll never receive a fraudulent order. It cannot predict whether a checkout could be fraudulent unless it matches a particular rule you create in the app. If possible, review an order's fraud analysis before fulfilling it.

Does a customer know that their order is matching a rule set in Fraud Control?

No. Fraud Control doesn't notify customers that their order appears to be fraudulent. In the checkout process a blocked checkout will receive an error that the checkout could not be completed and for the buyer to reach out to the store owner. Blocked checkouts will show in the abandoned checkouts section of your store.

Shopify Flow

You can use automated actions in Shopify Flow to help reduce the time and effort that you spend managing fraudulent activity in your store. From the Fraud Control app page in your Shopify admin, you can install several pre-made Shopify Flow templates:

  • Manually capture the payment of high-risk orders: This template stops an order's payment from being automatically captured if the order's risk level is High.
  • Cancel and restock high-risk orders: This template cancels high-risk orders, returns the ordered items to your inventory, and notifies the customer that their order has been canceled.
  • Cancel orders from bad email addresses: This template adds tags to an order and cancels it if the order is placed from an email address that was used for past fraudulent orders.
  • Restrict orders from customers to five a day: This template cancels all a customer's orders if they place more than five in a single day.
  • Notify your team of a chargeback: This template sends an internal email to staff members if a chargeback is received by your store.
  • Get notified of high-risk orders: This template sends an internal email to staff members if a high-risk order is received before the payment is captured.
  • Get notified of "return abuse" customers: This template adds tags to an order and sends an internal email to staff members if the order is placed by a customer that has made multiple returns.

If you have experience with creating workflows in Shopify Flow, then you can customize these templates to suit your needs, or create your own risk management workflow.

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