Fraud checks
How OpenPromoter scores partners and referrals for fraud. See what is checked, when commissions are held, how to set the hold score and how to clear or confirm a flag.
OpenPromoter checks every partner and every new referral for fraud and gives each a risk score from 0 to 100. Commissions at or above your hold score are held until you decide. On the Fraud page you mark each flag Looks fine or Confirm fraud and ban.
How to review a flag
- Open Fraud. The top shows Open flags, Held commissions and High-risk partners.
- Read the flag. It shows its score, the check that raised it, the partner and what was found.
- Click Looks fine if it's innocent. Or click Confirm fraud and ban if it's fraud.
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Looks fine | The flag closes and commissions the fraud checks held are released. Holds you added by hand stay. The partner's score drops to their worst open flag. |
| Confirm fraud and ban | The partner is banned. Their unpaid commissions stay held and they are left out of payouts. |
Released commissions go back to pending if they are still inside the hold window. Otherwise they are approved for the next payout.
Click Re-run checks to score every partner again now.
What we check
| Check | What it looks for | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Self-referral | The customer's email is the partner's own, including +tag and Gmail dot aliases |
95 |
| Same network as partner | The customer signed up from the network the partner applied from | 75 |
| Duplicate accounts | Three or more referred accounts share one network | 40 to 80 |
| Coupon leaking | At least 80% of 5 or more referrals used the coupon with no click. The code may be on a coupon site. | 45 |
| Paid ads on your brand | 3 or more clicks came from paid search ads (gclid, msclkid and similar) |
50 to 85 |
| Suspicious click pattern | A visitor clicked 25 or more times, or 1,000 clicks brought no signups | 35 to 55 |
| Bot traffic | At least 30% of 20 or more clicks look automated | 50 |
| Refunds after payout | At least 30% of 3 or more paid commissions were refunded later | 60 |
| Customers cancel fast | Half or more of 5 or more referred customers canceled within a week | 40 |
| Payout account shared with another partner | The same PayPal or Wise account on more than one partner | 70 |
| Recruited own account | A two-tier recruit looks like the recruiter's own account | 90 |
The partner checks look at the last 90 days. Several weak signals add up, but the score never passes 100.
When commissions are held
There are two holds:
- A risky referral. Each new sale starts from the partner's score and goes up when the customer has the partner's email or network. If it reaches your hold score, that commission is held.
- A risky partner. When a partner's score reaches your hold score, all their unpaid commissions are held. Commissions their recruiters earn from them are held too.
Held commissions show on the Held tab of Commissions with the reason. They never join a payout until someone releases them. The first time a partner crosses the line, OpenPromoter sends the fraud.flagged webhook event.
How to set the hold score
- Open Settings > Program.
- In the Fraud card, set Auto-hold at risk score. The default is 70. Any value from 10 to 100 works.
- Click Save.
A lower number holds more commissions for review. The High risk tab on Partners uses the same number.
Bot clicks
Clicks from crawlers, headless browsers and scripts are recognized by their browser signature. They are recorded for the fraud checks and kept out of everything else. Analytics, the partner's traffic, contests and EPC count human clicks only.
Good to know
- Checks run on every plan, on every sale and once a day for every partner.
- Owners and admins can clear or confirm flags.
- Autopilot suggests pausing a partner whose score reaches your hold score. See AI features.
- A paused partner's new commissions are held too. See Partners.
- For how accounts, money and data are protected, see Security.
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