You're so excited to receive yet another order but now your order says "High risk of fraud detected". Should you process the order or not?
This article is here to share more insight about this situation and hopefully give you better tools to deal with this situation.
Shopify's Fraud Analysis
In every single order, Shopify provides an analysis on fraud based on it's large data and machine learning. They try to help you avoid fraud and have less chargebacks and in case of high risk analysis, are accurate much of the time.
What is a Chargeback?
A chargeback is when a customer disagrees with a charge from your store and asks their bank to return the money, which the bank then takes the money immediately. This happens a lot with stolen credit cards and the original owner of the card finding out that someone else used their card and contacting their bank.
NOTE: if you think the order is legit, you can dispute the chargeback and provide evidence. It is up to the bank to decide who is right. If you lose the chargeback, you will be charge an extra fee (usually $15)
Next Steps
If you're received a high risk alert, you should visit the details of the analysis and review row by row to understand the details. And based on the data decide if you want to process the order or cancel it.
- The rows with the red circles are identified as high risk
- The rows with the grey circles are identified as informational for your diagnosis purposes
- The rows with the green circles are identified as low risk or healthy.
In Most Cases
If you have received a high risk, you should cancel it. Shopify is very good (but not always) at identifying fraud.
If You Are Not Sure
Before you process the order review the fraud analysis. Then, email the customer and call them to ask them questions about the order and use specifics from your analysis to ask questions.
I would recommend to call them as usually you can spot scammers from either their phone number or the way that they answer you. If the order doesn't have a phone number, email them and tell them that customer service requires a phone call and has a few questions before shipping their order.
