Skip to main content

Fake Order Guard

Fake Order Guard does two things for orders placed on your storefront:

  • It refuses a new order at checkout when the same phone number or the same device has already reached your order limit for the protection period.
  • It scores every placed order in the background and moves the ones that look fake to Flagged, so you check them before they are confirmed or shipped.

Open the settings​

  1. Open Apps.
  2. On the Fake OrderGuard card, click Configure Settings.

The settings page is Fake OrderGuard Settings. Every plan includes the basic protection. The advanced checks are not included in the PAYG and Starter plans. See Subscription and billing.

Turn protection on or off​

Enable Fake Order Protection is the main switch; its badge reads Active or Inactive. When it is off, no order is refused for the order limit and no order is scored or flagged. Blocked phone numbers, devices and IP addresses in the Blacklist Manager are still refused.

Set the order limit​

These two settings are on every plan:

  • Number of Accepted Orders: 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 orders.
  • Protection Period: 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, or Custom (a number of hours or days).

Once a phone number or a device has placed that many orders within the period, its next checkout is refused. The customer sees a message that they reached the store's order limit for now. For example, with 3 orders and 1 day, a fourth order from the same phone number within 24 hours is refused.

The limit applies to storefront checkouts only. Orders you or your agents enter in the dashboard are not refused, and an abandoned order being saved does not count as a placed order.

Click Save Protection Settings. The page confirms with Settings saved successfully.

How orders are scored​

After an order is placed, the guard adds up risk signals into a score. When the score is high enough, the order moves to Flagged.

The basic checks look at orders arriving from the same IP address, the same phone number and the same device within your protection period, and at the same phone number reordering to the same location.

The advanced checks add:

  • bursts of orders in a short time;
  • one IP address used with many phone numbers, or one phone number used from many IP addresses;
  • names that look typed at random or filled with test text;
  • the phone number's history in your store: a high share of cancelled or returned orders, once it has at least 3 orders;
  • a phone number or IP address that someone in your store has already set to Flagged by hand.

With advanced checks, when the same phone number or IP address keeps sending high-risk orders, its other orders that are still Abandoned, Pending or Call Back are flagged too.

Advanced checks switch​

On a plan that includes them, the Advanced checks switch appears. Turn it off to keep only the basic checks without turning protection off. On a plan without them, the page shows Advanced checks require Advanced Guard with an Upgrade plan button.

Review flagged orders​

Flagged orders appear under the Flagged tab on Orders, with a Fake badge. Flagging does not cancel anything; the order waits for you.

  1. Open the order and call the customer.
  2. If it is real, click RECOVER on a phone, or set the status to Pending, then confirm it as usual.
  3. If it is fake, set the status to Cancelled. To stop that customer from ordering again, use Block customer.

The guard only flags orders that are Abandoned, Pending or Call Back, so it never changes an order you already confirmed. A call center agent can cancel a flagged order but cannot confirm it. Orders flagged by the guard do not count toward your monthly order limit. See Orders and order statuses.

Good to know​

  • When you set an order to Flagged by hand, the advanced checks treat that phone number and IP address as known fake in your store.
  • The order limit counts orders per phone number and per device, not per IP address. Many customers on mobile networks share one IP address.