Fraud detection API with signals you can explain
{ "email": "user+promo2@gmail.com", "deliverability": "DELIVERABLE", "quality_score": 0.15, "is_free_email": true, "is_disposable_email": false, "is_subaddress": true, "is_role_email": false, "is_smtp_valid": true }
The signals that reveal fraud
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How the fraud detection API works
The types of online fraud
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Frequently asked questions
What is fraud detection?
Fraud detection is the practice of spotting bad activity before it causes loss: fake signups, stolen cards, bot traffic, and abuse of promos or accounts. It works by scoring the identity and context behind each action against known risk signals, then flagging or blocking the ones that look fraudulent.
What is the difference between fraud detection and fraud prevention?
Detection identifies fraud that is happening or has happened, usually by scoring signals and surfacing risky activity. Prevention stops it before it lands, by blocking or challenging risky actions at signup, login, or checkout. In practice the same endpoint serves both, which is why a fraud detection API and a fraud prevention API are usually the same product: you decide whether to log the risk or act on it. Most teams do both.
What are the main types of online fraud?
Common types include fake and new-account fraud, bot attacks, SMS pumping, promo and referral abuse, chargeback and payment fraud, account takeover, ad fraud, and multi-accounting. They differ in target but share the same tells: throwaway emails, VOIP numbers, and VPN or datacenter IPs.
How do you choose an ecommerce fraud detection solution?
Start with the signals at your entry points, signup, login and checkout, because most ecommerce fraud shows the same tells: a disposable email, a VOIP phone number, a VPN or datacenter IP. A signal API covers that layer cheaply and returns flags you can explain to a chargeback reviewer. Add a rules engine or an ML platform once your volume justifies the cost. Abstract is the signal layer, not a full fraud platform, so pair it with those for case management and investigation.
Does Abstract detect fraud on its own?
Abstract is the data layer, not a full fraud platform. Its Email Validation, Phone Validation, and IP Intelligence APIs return the signals, disposable emails, VOIP numbers, VPN and proxy IPs, that reveal fraud. You combine those signals and decide the action, or feed them into your existing fraud tooling.
Which signals matter most for detecting fraud?
The highest-value tells are a disposable or free email, plus-addressing, a VOIP or invalid phone number, and a VPN, proxy, or datacenter IP. No single flag is proof, but several together on one action are a strong fraud signal you can act on with confidence.
