Fraud Settings and Business Rules

William Harper Updated by William Harper

Preventing fraudulent use of the referral program is key to establishing growth using our platform, and we have all the tools you need to mitigate this as much as possible. In this help article, we'll define the different fraud settings and where you can set them up.

Configuring Your Fraud Settings

To set up your fraud settings, navigate to Settings > Program Integrity. From here, there are two different sections we will cover: the Fraud Protection section and the Global Reward Allowance section.

Fraud Protection Settings

The settings configured under these sections will control the rules that will either approve or deny Advocate Rewards and Friend Incentives based on information collected about the Advocate (referrer) and the Referred Friend. We have a number of intelligent ways to prevent fraudulent referral activity. Below are some definitions of the different options available.

Self-Referral Redirect URL

Self-Referral Redirect URL

When Friendbuy detects an Advocate has attempted to refer themselves and clicks on their own referral link they will be redirected to a Self-Referral page, and will not receive a Friend incentive. You can control the design of the page by updating this URL. 

Self-Referral Redirect Settings

Same Cookie

When an Advocate or a Referred Friend clicks through one of Friendbuy's referral links, a cookie is dropped and placed in their browser. If the Same Cookie fraud setting is enabled and the same cookie is detected, this will redirect the Advocate to the Self-Referral Redirect URL. We recommend this setting be enabled.

Same IP Address

When a referral is made through Friendbuy, the IP address of the Advocate as well as the Referred Friend are collected. If this setting is enabled and the same IP address is detected, the user will be directed to the Self-Referral Redirect URL. We do not recommend this setting as being enabled, and instead recommend the below fraud setting.

Note: Enabling this setting may cause two different users sharing within the same office or building to be rejected due to having the same static IP address.

Same IP Address and User Agent

Compared to only identifying the same IP address, this fraud setting will also look to see if the User Agent of the user is the same in both the Advocate as well as the Referred Friend. This is the recommended fraud setting to use when looking to block fraudulent referrals using the same IP address, as this will look past just the IP address and identify if the User Agent is the same. If both identifiers are detected as the same, the user will be directed to the Self-Referral Redirect URL.

Reward and Incentive Rejection Settings

Same Email Address

This fraud setting will automatically reject an Advocate Reward and Friend Incentive that would be sent to a user if both the Advocate and the Referred Friend have the exact same email address. We recommend this be enabled.

Similar Email Address

Using Similar Email Address checks, our system can automatically reject an Advocate Reward and Friend Incentive if the Advocate and Friend's email address is too similar. This setting can be adjusted to higher sensitivity or lower sensitivity based on your needs. Please contact your Customer Success Manager or support@friendbuy.com if you'd like to have this adjusted. To learn more about how this Rejection Setting works, you can click here for our dedicated help article on this topic.

Same Customer ID

If provided through our integration code, our system can check the Customer ID between an Advocate and a Referred Friend. If the Customer IDs are the same, our system will automatically reject the reward and incentive.

User is on the Block List

When enabled, our system will automatically prevent any rewards from going to referrers who are found on your Block List. You can learn more about how to block users from the referral program by clicking here.

Global Reward Allowance

While most forms of fraud can be prevented using the above settings, some users may try and take advantage of the referral program in other ways. Setting a maximum global reward allowance is a great way to prevent consumers from gaming your referral program. For a more dedicated, in-depth help article on Global Reward Allowances, be sure to click here!

Maximum of* (Rewards/USD)

This setting will allow you to set a maximum amount of rewards a customer can receive across all of your campaigns, either from the total number of rewards earned or an amount of currency value.

Time Frame* (Year/Month/Lifetime/Custom Range)

This will allow you to set a time frame for which the maximum amount of rewards setting will apply to. This can be selected as a year, month, lifetime, or a custom date range. For example, setting a maximum of 10 rewards in a yearly time frame will stop users from receiving more than 10 rewards during the one-year period.

Select Campaigns to Exclude

This will allow you to exclude any of your campaigns that you do not wish the Global Reward Allowance to apply to, which may be useful for situations such as contests or entries.

How did we do?

How to Block an Email Address

Configuring a Global Reward Allowance

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