Using fraud detection

Using a fraud detection service helps you avoid fraud and financial losses.

For fraud detection to work, you must ask AltaPay to enable it, using one of these providers: 

  • MaxMind

  • Retail Decisions (ReD)

  • MarketPay

Fraud providers vary in their design and interaction model. MaxMind and ReD are invoked only after a successful payment authorization. Using the received parameters, they generate a fraud recommendation. In contrast, the MarketPay provider requires a session to be initialized at the start of the payment flow and tracks each payment attempt within that session. It calculates the transaction risk based on user behavior and the attributes provided during the payment process.

For more details on the required attributes, refer to the section of createPaymentRequest.

To determine if a payment request is a fraud attempt, you look at the fraud detection parameters of a successful payment request. If the FraudRecommendation says Deny, you are recommended to release or refund the payment.

Parameter  

FraudRiskScore

This is the probability that the transaction is a fraud attempt, and should be read in context of the FraudExplanation and the FraudRecommendation. For example a fraud risk score of 13.37 means there is a 13.37% chance of this order being fraud. For ReD, the value is always -1, as it is not computed by this provider.

FraudExplanation

Contains a detailed explanation of the fraud risk evaluation. Only relevant for MaxMind. For other providers it contains the value of the recommendation.

FraudRecommendation

The recommendation from the fraud detection service provider. For example:

  • Accept: The order does not appear to be fraudulent, and you should deliver the goods or services.
  • Deny: The order appears to be fraudulent, and you should not deliver the goods or services.
  • Challenge: Something about the order is questionable. You should review the order manually before making a decision. For ReD, Challenge is only supported for bespoke setups. If you are using the ReD Sector model, Challenge is not available.
  • Unknown: There is no recommendation available, either because of insufficient information, or an underlying service was unavailable, for example, there was no response from ReD.
    • Unknown is also returned for declined transaction.

Example of the fraud XML response parameters

<FraudRiskScore>48</FraudRiskScore>

<FraudRecommendation>Deny</FraudRecommendation>

<FraudExplanation>High risk country: Yes</FraudExplanation>