Fraud Detection
Automatic fraud detection protects your referral program from self-referrals, duplicate payments, and other abuse.
ViralRef includes built-in fraud detection to protect your referral program from abuse. Suspicious activity is caught automatically and flagged for your review.
What ViralRef Catches Automatically
Self-Referrals
Someone tries to refer themselves to earn a free gift card.
How it's caught: ViralRef checks if the new signup's contact info matches the referrer's info. If the email or phone number is the same person, it's flagged.
What happens: The conversion is flagged and can be automatically rejected.
Duplicate Charges
The same purchase is counted twice, which would result in double rewards.
How it's caught: Every purchase is checked for uniqueness before a conversion is created.
What happens: The duplicate is blocked entirely — only the first conversion counts.
Suspiciously Fast Conversions
A referred customer makes a purchase unrealistically fast after clicking the referral link (e.g., within seconds).
How it's caught: ViralRef measures the time between when someone clicks the referral link and when the purchase happens. If it's faster than what's normal for your business, it's flagged.
What happens: The conversion is flagged for you to review manually.
Fake Email Addresses
Someone signs up with a throwaway or temporary email address (like mailinator.com or tempmail.com).
How it's caught: Email addresses are checked against a list of known temporary email providers.
What happens: The conversion is flagged for review. This is especially useful for protecting viral loop programs from fake signups.
How to Review Flagged Activity
When something suspicious is detected:
- The conversion is flagged in your dashboard
- You'll see it in the fraud alerts section under Partners > Analytics
- For each flagged event, you can:
- Confirm it's fraud: Keep the conversion rejected and the flag active
- Dismiss the flag: If it was a false alarm, clear the flag and restore the conversion
Adjusting Your Settings
You can fine-tune fraud detection from Settings > Organization:
| Setting | What It Does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Self-referral detection | Catch people referring themselves | On |
| Duplicate payment detection | Block the same purchase from being counted twice | On |
| Fast conversion threshold | How quickly a purchase can happen after a click before it's flagged | Adjustable |
| Fake email detection | Flag signups with temporary email addresses | On |
Best Practices
- Check flagged activity regularly. False positives happen — a legitimate customer might happen to have a similar name or phone number as the referrer.
- Start with default settings. Tighten them as you learn what's normal for your business.
- Pay extra attention to the viral loop. The viral loop creates more opportunities for abuse, so watch for patterns like multiple signups from the same area in a short time.
- Don't let flagged items pile up. Unreviewed flags can accumulate and make it harder to spot real problems.
Fraud detection only affects referral rewards — it doesn't block or reverse actual purchases. Your customer's payment still goes through normally at Square. Fraud detection just prevents the referrer from earning a reward on a suspicious conversion.
Manual Fraud Actions
Beyond automatic detection, you can manually flag any conversion as fraudulent:
- Go to Conversions
- Find the suspicious conversion
- Click Mark as Fraud
- The conversion status changes to Fraud and the reward is voided
You can also block the associated referrer to prevent them from earning any future rewards.
Next Steps
Tracking Conversions
Understand the full conversion tracking flow.
Bounties & Challenges
Run time-bound campaigns to motivate your referrers.