How to stop scammers from joining your affilite programs?
 

Ok I got hit hard this last month with some fraud, some of the guys were just stupid and would convert 3 month sign ups at 1/10, lol so they were easy to spot but others actually sent real looking traffic, one guy was doing about 1/700 so I thought this guy was legit.

After 3 charge backs from this scammer today I look at his members and noticed 3 of them have the same password and almost all the e-mails are the customers first and last names, for sure fraud but he seemed legit.

Anyway, what do you do to separate the legit with the more than likely scammers (but not for sure at first)

Close the auto account approvals.

shut down epassporte - if you shut down epassporte, you shut down the scammers - it is the preferred payout of the scammer - make it so you have to manually add them in order to get that payout option - you'll see some of them even still try to hit you up and play like their legitimate but its easy to spot with their broken language and their insistence on getting epass right away.

also, beware, they probably have registered a lot of accounts for when u catch on, so even when u do term epass automatically, they probably have a pool of accounts they will try and continue on with epass already set. and never ever let on to how you caught them like above, they will only use it to try and defraud you later on. these are typically ppl in very poor countries - $500 is a lot of cash to them and they are willing to do the work.

Order a script that will be checking member zone login patterns - legit members usually login many times and their first login usually closely follows their subscription time/date.

If most members sent by a particular affiliate login 0-2 times, or show any other deviations from the standard members' behavior, that's the good reason to check this affiliate account closely for possible fraud.

One way to work that out with the epass is simply make it mandatory for the first payment to be a check.

Some people wont mind but its like going to the airport. You want on the plane, take your shoes off. You want the $$ take the check the first time.

You could also try blocking certain countries and email domains. *.ru for example.

phone verification will really help.

ask for id

Some 22 year old kid from the US just called us without a clue on how affiliate programs work. He was told by some people in the phillipines they would pay him $13 per sale if they could use him to collect the money. They are getting smarter for sure.

This is very helpful. Also, IP tracking. Anything that will help you detect a pattern.

That's horrible. I bet the kid was all excited and shit.

oh true this ... ? if true this its just wow! :upsidedow:error

Well considering he didnt know what a URL was I don't know if it was excitement or confusion he was feeling.

Crazy how they devote so much time and effort into scamming these programs.

wow...great information that's for sure!

actually Yen its not crazy at all

in some third world countries the average wage is less than $50 a month

fraud represents a great opportunity for them

These guys are everywhere...we always catch them before we pay, but its' just because of the way we work our program...but the problem is the charge backs. I don't want to jeopardize my merchant accounts by some dumb fuck sending me fraudulent joins. So I like the idea of the script to check member logins. At least that would send a flag up from a new reseller and you could ban the guy/girl before they send multiple joins.

vet your affiliates, make them go through you to get epass payouts

That's a great idea, I noticed they all use epass.

You are stupid for posting HOW you found the fraud. You trying to school the scammers?

sad but true

You need to screen each and every affiliate signup. You'll soon learn how to spot patterns.

Yes that's most likely the chatters many which can be deemed scammers as well because of the way they misrepresent a program.

They want a US presence because they know most programs are on to the type of traffic they send and ban or not allow PH accounts.

:thumbsup

Many programs share info on fraudulent webmasters, although normally its done via ICQ or Email.

:2 cents:

Close auto account approvals and pay 2 periods behind.

You need to check sales daily. They use patterns, most of them do same mistakes. Use a service like MaxMind too check distance from ip and do not accept cards that are higher then a threshold. Refund all the transactions when you find a fraud. I can not provide patterns on public forum as they might be reading as well, but feel free to contact me.