Using Fraud Management

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, reward 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 rewards
• Risk level
• Flagged date

Reviewing cases

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 rewards that are currently on hold.

To review a flagged partner:

1. Click on a partner's name to open a drawer view
2. Review the details on the partner, their flag reason(s), and their held rewards
   
   *test data used, no relation to real partners or customers
3. If you determine the partner is fraudulent, remove them by clicking "Remove partner"
   1. This will automatically remove the partner from your program
   2. When removing the partner you can also block the partner from re-applying to your program
4. If you determine the partner is legitimate, and you would like them to continue in your program click "Mark as Trustworthy"
   
   1. Enter the reason you trust this partner and click "Mark as trustworthy"
      1. The reason entered will be visible to your teammates in your "Marked as Trustworthy" tab
      2. The partner's fraud flag will be removed only for your program. If the partner has held rewards, 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 rewards 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. 

Marking a partner as trustworthy

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. 

Removing partners

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.

Rewards on "hold" & invoicing

When partners are flagged, their rewards will be automatically placed on hold to prevent any fraudulent rewards from being paid out. In your Rewards & Invoices tab their rewards will be marked with a hold status due to suspicious activity.

Your partner rewards invoice is generated on the last day of each month. When you mark a partner as trustworthy can impact how rewards are invoiced.

Marked as trustworthy before an invoice is generated:

• March 15th: Partner with new/pending/approved rewards is flagged as potentially fraudulent. Rewards are placed on hold.
• March 20th: Partner is marked as trustworthy in Fraud Management tab
  • Held rewards are reverted to a “pending” status
• March 31st: The March invoice is created with all “approved” and “pending” rewards, including the partner marked as trustworthy
  • Rewards follow the regular payout schedule 

Marked as trustworthy after an invoice has been generated:

• March 15th:  Partner with new/pending/approved rewards is flagged as potentially fraudulent. Rewards are placed on hold.
• March 31st: The March invoice is created with all “approved” and “pending” rewards. Held rewards are not invoiced.
• April 2nd: Partner is marked as trustworthy in the Fraud Management tab. 
  • Rewards 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 rewards are not pulled onto invoices. If you mark a partner as trustworthy after an invoice has been generated and would like the partner’s rewards to be included in the invoice before it is charged please reach out to support@partnerstack.com. 

Rewarding 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 rewards are legitimate and you would like to pay them out while you investigate the partner further, you can manually mark their rewards as "Approved" in your Rewards & Invoices > Review Rewards tab. A quick tip here is to filter for held rewards.

If you approve a partner's held rewards, they will be pulled onto your invoice at the end of the month. If you are paying out a flagged partner's rewards we highly recommend checking your internal systems for indicators of fraud outlined below.

Additional warning signs

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 rewards 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

Frequently asked questions

Q: How are rewards created with the API affected?

Rewards created via the API are created with a "new" status. Every 15 minutes a check is performed to see if any rewards should be placed on hold based on current flagged partners. Any rewards 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 they are still rewarded?

Rewards are held until the flagged partners are marked as trustworthy. Once approved, PartnerStack will generate the rewards as if the flag never happened, and rewards will appear on the next invoice.

If you would like to pay out partners while the dispute is processing you can update their reward 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 security@partnerstack.com.

Q: What if I am concerned with the legitimacy of one of my referrals, or partners?

Good eye! Please contact security@partnerstack.com and we can ensure our fraud team takes a deeper look.