The Possible Fraud Monitoring tool available in Consumer Marketing detects possible fraudulent accounts. Identifying these accounts helps catch fraudulent activity that is negatively impacting your brand. This tool can help you identify your most suspicious customers as well as potential employee misuse.

It is important to note that Possible Fraudulent Accounts does not equal Fraudulent Accounts. The Possible Fraud Monitoring tool simply looks for things that might be suspicious so your brand can investigate. You need to review these accounts to confirm fraud yourself.

How are possible fraudulent accounts identified?

Customers are given a 'suspicion score,' from 1-100, based on their activity over the past two full days. A suspicion score of 15-100 indicates a possible fraudulent account. Factors are evaluated and scored based on how much they deviate from the norm for your brand. These factors include:

• Days between purchases
• Purchase frequency
• Average checkout total
• Number of locations

When these accounts are identified, you or someone from your brand needs to go into the tool and confirm if these accounts are fraudulent or not. The data received in this feedback loop can improve the scoring process, which means it is best to provide as much feedback as possible!

How do I confirm that a possible fraudulent account is a fraudulent account?

While our tool highlights possible fraudulent accounts, you need to use your brand expertise and judgement to determine whether an account is fraudulent.

If there are possible fraudulent accounts, they appear within the Review tab of the Possible Fraud Monitoring tool. You can review these manually, and quickly review the suspicion score factors for an account, such as Spend, Average Days Between Purchases, Average Checkout Total, and Number of Locations over the last two days.

If you want to do a deeper dive, click the account card number to view their customer profile. Here, you can review much more information about them, such as their detailed transactional data, balances, and event history...including previous possible fraud identification and reviews. This information can also aide you in making a decision about the account.

How do I review an account as fraudulent?

You can review an account within the Review tab of the Possible Fraud Monitoring tool. To flag an account as fraudulent or not fraudulent, simply navigate to the account and select an option from the dropdown.

When reviewing an account, you are able to choose from the following options:

• Not Fraudulent - This Review — Account is not fraudulent for this particular review but is still eligible to be identified in the future.
• Not Fraudulent - Exclude from ALL Reviews — Account should never be seen as fraudulent and should always be excluded. This option is commonly used for test accounts or employees known to shop a lot.
• Fraudulent Account - Employee — Account is an employee account being suspended due to fraudulent activity.
• Fraudulent Account - Customer — Account is a customer account being suspended due to fraudulent activity.
• Fraudulent Account - Hacked — Account is being suspended due to fraudulent activity as a result of being hacked by an unauthorized user.
• Fraudulent Account - Spam/Phishing — Account is being suspended due to being created for spam or phishing purposes.

What happens if I mark an account as Fraudulent?

Marking an account as fraudulent results in suspending their account in Virtual Terminal with the associated fraudulent reason. Existing rewards are still preserved on their account but can no longer be used by the account unless it is reactivated (more on that below).

How can I see previously reviewed accounts?

You can view the last 100 previously reviewed accounts in the History tab of the Possible Fraud Monitoring tool. You will see information previously shown on the Review section, as well as when the account was reviewed, who the account was reviewed by, and the decision made regarding the account.

What if there are no accounts identified as possibly fraudulent?

If all your accounts look fraud-free, a pop-up message appears letting you know that no possible fraudulent accounts were currently identified. Your goal is to review all the accounts so that you end up getting this message!

What if I mark an account as fraudulent by mistake?

You can reactivate an account marked with a Fraudulent option in Virtual Terminal. Note that even if they are reactivated, we cannot remove the original fraud event that was logged. When an account is reactivated, their existing rewards will be available for use again.

You can read the article here to learn about suspending and unsuspending a loyalty card.