Who is this article for?
This article will be useful to you, if are a company on PartnerStack, looking to use your Fraud Management tab to review, and remove or approve flagged partners.
Looking for information on how fraud is detected? Check out our How is fraud detected? support guide.
PartnerStack has partnered with Sift, an industry-leading fraud detection network, to provide channel managers and their compliance teams strong protection against fraudulent partner activity.
PartnerStack will let you know when Sift has identified a suspicious partner by flagging the partner in your Fraud Management tab.
To review your suspicious cases: click the "suspicious cases" link in the Security Monitoring box on your home page, or click your "Fraud Management" tab in the left-hand menu.
Using the Fraud Management tab
Once you have navigated to the Fraud Management tab, you'll be able to filter flagged partners by risk level, review flagged behavior, and choose to either remove fraudulent partners or approve them to continue in your program.
*test data used, no relation to real partners or customers
Active Cases Tab
After landing on the Fraud Management tab, you will see a list of all active fraud cases by default. The active cases tab includes all new fraud cases and provides the risk level associated with the partner.
In the active cases tab, you can search by partner name or email, filter by risk level, or sort by the flagged date, commission hold amount, or risk level.
The following details are provided per fraud case in the active cases tab:
- Partner name
- Flag reasons as provided by Sift
- Hold amount and number of held commissions
- Risk level
- Flagged date
Reviewing flagged partners
Partners are flagged in your Fraud Management tab if their data or activity raises an alert in Sift. Incidents that may raise an alert include but are not limited to suspicious IP address and device fingerprint activity, email similarity, and unusual account activity.
In your Fraud Management tab, you can view details on a flagged partner including the reason they were flagged, information on their group, team, keys, revenue, segments, tags, sign-up dates, and flagged commissions that are currently on hold.
Removing flagged partners
If you have determined a partner is fraudulent, you can remove them from your program from your Fraud Management tab.
- Click on a partner's name to open a drawer view
- Review the details on the partner, their flag reason(s), and their held commissions
*test data used, no relation to real partners or customers - If you determine the partner is fraudulent, remove them by clicking "Remove partner"
- This will automatically remove the partner from your program
- When removing the partner you can also block the partner from re-applying to your program
If you remove a partner from your program due to fraud, they will appear in your Removed partners tab. In this tab, you can search by partner name, filter by status, or sort by the flagged/resolved date.
This tab contains information on Partners that have been removed from the program including the following:
- Name of the Partner
- Original Flag Reason
- Date of Flag
- Date of Removal
To view which teammate removed a partner, click on the partner in your "Removed partners" tab.
Marking a flagged partner as trustworthy
If you have determined a flagged partner is trustworthy and you would like them to continue in your program, you can mark them as trustworthy from your Fraud Management tab.
- Click on a partner's name to open a drawer view
- Review the details on the partner, their flag reason(s), and their held commissions
- If you determine the partner is legitimate, and you would like them to continue in your program click "Mark as Trustworthy"
- Enter the reason you trust this partner and click "Mark as trustworthy"
- The reason entered will be visible to your teammates in your "Marked as Trustworthy" tab
- The reason entered will be visible to your teammates in your "Marked as Trustworthy" tab
- The partner's fraud flag will be removed only for your program. If the partner has held commissions, they will be marked as “pending” and will be pulled onto your next invoice for your review.
As a best practice, we recommend reviewing flagged partners with held commissions before the end of the month. If you would like a partner paid out on the current month’s invoice, mark them as trustworthy before the last day of the month when the invoice is generated.
If you mark a partner as trustworthy they will appear in your Marked as Trustworthy tab. In this tab, you can search by partner name or email, or sort by the "Marked on" date.
This tab contains information on Partners that have been marked as trustworthy including the following:
- Name of the Partner
- Original Flag Reason
- Reason for trusting
- Trusted by
- Marked on
A partner marked as trustworthy will not be flagged in your program in the future.
What happens to flagged partners' commissions?
When partners are flagged in your Fraud Management tab, their commissions will be automatically placed on hold to prevent any fraudulent commissions from being paid out. In your Commissions & Invoices tab, their commissions will be marked with a hold status due to suspicious activity.
I've marked a partner as trustworthy, how are their commissions invoiced?
Your partner commissions invoice is generated on the last day of each month. The date you mark a partner as trustworthy can impact how their commissions are invoiced.
For commissions to automatically be pulled onto an invoice, the partner must be marked as trustworthy before your invoice is generated.
Partner marked as trustworthy before an invoice is generated:
- March 15th: Partner with new/pending/approved commissions is flagged as potentially fraudulent. Commissions are placed on hold.
- March 20th: Partner is marked as trustworthy in Fraud Management tab
- Held commissions are reverted to a “pending” status
- March 31st: The March invoice is created with all “approved” and “pending” commissions, including the partner marked as trustworthy
- Commissions follow the regular payout schedule
Partner marked as trustworthy after an invoice has been generated:
- March 15th: Partner with new/pending/approved commissions is flagged as potentially fraudulent. Commissions are placed on hold.
- March 31st: The March invoice is created with all “approved” and “pending” commissions. Held commissions are not invoiced.
- April 2nd: Partner is marked as trustworthy in the Fraud Management tab.
- Commissions will be automatically pulled onto the April invoice on April 30th or can be included on the March invoice by contacting support@partnerstack.com before the invoice charge date.
Held commissions are not pulled onto invoices. If you mark a partner as trustworthy after an invoice has been generated and would like the partner’s commissions to be included in the invoice before it is charged please reach out to support@partnerstack.com.
Issuing a commission to a flagged partner
If you are not sure if you would like to return a partner to your program fully, but have confirmed that their held commissions are legitimate and you would like to pay them out while you investigate the partner further, you can manually mark their commissions as "Approved" in your Commissions & Invoices > Review Commissions tab. A quick tip here is to filter for held commissions.
If you approve a partner's held commissions, they will be pulled onto your invoice at the end of the month. If you are paying out a flagged partner's commissions we highly recommend checking your internal systems for indicators of fraud outlined below.
Additional warning signs of fraud
When reviewing a partner's fraud flag we recommend checking your internal systems for indicators of fraud.
Be on the lookout for:
- A high volume of customers being created in a very short period of time
- Customers that cancel in under a month
- Customers issuing chargebacks
Additional ways to verify activity:
- Review all commissions to ensure that they are true sales depending on the rules of your offers
- Validate social links from the partner. Validated links are a strong indicator that the partner is not creating self-referrals
- Look for websites including social sites, affiliate websites, and blogs
- Validate if the partner's website contains javascript snippets or link tracking
Flagging a partner for review with PartnerStack security
Notice potentially fraudulent behavior for a specific partner? Great eye! If the partner is not already flagged in your Fraud Management tab you can mark the partner as potentially fraudulent for our security team to review.
You can place the partner's commissions on hold while our security team investigates the partner from your Commissions & Invoices > Review commissions tab.
To flag a partner for PartnerStack security to review:
- Navigate to your All Partners tab and click on the partner you would like to flag
- In the partner detail view, click the three stacked dots next to "Message"
- In the dropdown, click "Flag partner for potential fraud"
- Enter the reason you believe the partner is fraudulent and any detail that you would like our security team to consider
- Click "Submit & flag partner"
Once you have flagged the partner, you will see a banner at the top of their partner detail view. This banner will let your teammates know that you have flagged the partner, and will show that the flag is pending review from the PartnerStack security team.
If you have flagged a partner for review but have determined they are not fraudulent, you can remove the potential fraud flag from the partner by clicking the three stacked dots again and clicking "unflag partner" and providing a reason.
Security review process
Our security team will review the partner's fraud indicators, along with the information you provide in your fraud flag.
Note: The partner will not appear in your Fraud Management tab until the PartnerStack security team has marked the partner as fraudulent.
If the security team determines the partner's fraud risk is high, they will mark the partner as a risk in PartnerStack's Network and the partner will appear in your Fraud Management tab where you can remove the partner from your program.
If the security team determines the partner's fraud risk is not high, they will not mark the partner as a risk in PartnerStack's Network, however, you can still choose to remove the partner from your program from your All Partners tab if they are not a good fit, or if they have violated your program's Terms of Service.
Manually placing commissions on hold
If you flag a partner as potentially fraudulent and would like to ensure any commissions are not paid out in the meantime you can place their commissions on hold by:
- In your "Commissions & invoices" tab click on "Review commissions"
- Search for the partner and select all their pending commissions
- Click "Update selected commissions"
- In the drawer view that opens, select "Hold" as the status and click "Update status"
If the security team determines the partner is legitimate and you would like the partners commissions to be paid out, you can mark their commissions as "Approved" and they will be automatically paid out on your next invoice.
Frequently asked questions
Q: How are commissions created with the API affected by fraud?
Commissions created via the API are created with a "new" status. Every 15 minutes a check is performed to see if any commissions should be placed on hold based on current flagged partners. Any commissions created for flagged partners will be put "on hold"
Q: What do I do if I have confirmed a partner is fraudulent?
If you have confirmed in your system that a partner is fraudulent, please remove them from your program by clicking “Remove partner” in your Fraud Management tab. You can select “Block this partner from reapplying” before you remove them from your program.
Q: A partner was incorrectly flagged as fraudulent. How do I ensure their commissions are invoiced?
Commissions are held until the flagged partners are marked as trustworthy. Once approved, PartnerStack will generate the commissions as if the flag never happened, and commissions will appear on the next invoice.
If you would like to pay out partners while the dispute is processing you can update their commission status manually from "on hold" to "approved".
Q: Can I control the way the Fraud Management tab behaves? Can I decide when a customer is flagged and when they are not?
Fraud detection is controlled by the PartnerStack fraud team, you cannot configure rules or logic for your individual program. If you have concerns about this, please contact support@partnerstack.com.
Q: If I approve a partner's application and they are flagged as potentially fraudulent do I need to mark them as trustworthy?
Yes, if you approve an application from a partner that is flagged as potentially fraudulent you will need to mark the partner as trustworthy in your Fraud Management tab.