Preventing referral fraud

Smile’s fraud analysis helps detect fraudulent referrals and minimize your loyalty program’s exposure to referral abuse.

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Why a referral is blocked

Smile automatically detects the following high-risk indicators of referral fraud:

• The Advocate and Friend email addresses are similar
• The Friend uses a known temporary or throwaway email address
• The same Friend email address has been used to claim multiple recent referrals
• There is a high volume of referrals from the same IP address
• The order is not the customer’s first order
• The order is placed by the Advocate
• The order is placed by someone with the same name as the Advocate

If Smile detects that a referral has a high risk of being fraudulent, the referral is flagged and automatically blocked to prevent it from being completed. Blocked referrals are listed in the Blocked column of the All referrals grid in Smile Admin.

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When referrals can be blocked

There are two points in the referral process where a referral can be blocked.

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When a Friend claims their referral reward code

When a Friend enters their email address to claim their referral reward code, Smile checks the referral for a high risk of fraud. If the referral is identified as high risk:

• The referral is blocked
• The Friend cannot claim their reward code and will see an error message letting them know there was an issue with the referral
• The Advocate will not receive a reward for the referral

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When a Friend uses their reward code to place an order

When a Friend uses their reward code to place an order, Smile checks the referral again for a high risk of fraud. If the referral is identified as high risk:

• The referral is blocked
• The Friend’s order has already been placed with their discount, but the Advocate will not receive a reward for the referral

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What you can do when a referral is blocked

If a referral is flagged as having a high risk of fraud, you can review more details about it in Smile Admin. The referral will remain blocked unless you choose to unblock or cancel it.

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Review the referral details

Each blocked referral has a referral fraud indicator on its referral detail card. This indicator explains why the referral was flagged as high risk. To view the detail card for a blocked referral, select the referral from the All referrals grid. The detail card includes information you can use to determine whether the referral is fraudulent:

• The Advocate and Friend details
• The reason the referral was flagged as high risk
• Whether the referral reward code has been used by the Friend

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Cancel or unblock the referral

You can choose to cancel or unblock a blocked referral at any time. To unblock or cancel a referral, open the referral detail card and select the action you’d like to take. When you cancel a referral, it will:

• Move the referral to the Cancelled column of your All referrals grid

When you unblock a referral, what happens next depends on whether the Friend has already placed an order: If the Friend has already placed an order:

• The referral moves to Complete
• The Advocate receives their reward and a Referral Completed email notification

If the Friend has not yet placed an order:

• The referral moves to Pending
• The Friend receives an email notification with their referral code