Answer

The Advanced Fraud Detection Suite is a powerful, rules-based set of transaction filters and Internet Protocol (IP) address tools designed to help online merchants identify, manage and prevent costly fraudulent transactions.

AFDS includes multiple filters and tools that work together to evaluate transactions for indicators of fraud. Their combined logic provides a powerful and highly effective defense against fraudulent transactions.

In addition to the filters listed below, Authorize.Net also offers a Daily Velocity Filter at no charge. The Daily Velocity Filter allows you to specify a threshold for the number of transactions allowed per day, a useful tactic to identify high-volume fraud attacks.

• Amount Filter – Set lower and upper transaction amount thresholds to restrict high-risk transactions often used to test the validity of credit card numbers.
• Hourly Velocity Filter – Limit the total number of transactions received per hour, preventing high-volume attacks common with fraudulent transactions.
• Shipping-Billing Mismatch Filter – Identify high-risk transactions with different shipping and billing addresses, potentially indicating purchases made using a stolen credit card.
• Transaction IP Velocity Filter – Isolate suspicious activity from a single source by identifying excessive transactions received from the same IP address.
• Suspicious Transaction Filter – Reviews highly suspicious transactions using proprietary criteria identified by Authorize.Net's dedicated Fraud Management Team.
• Authorized AIM IP Addresses – Allows merchant submitting Advanced Integration Method (AIM) transactions to designate specific server IP addresses that are authorized to submit transactions.
• IP Address Blocking – Block transactions from IP addresses known to be used for fraudulent activity.
• Enhanced AVS Handling Filter – The Address Verification Service (AVS) is a standard feature of the payment gateway that compares the address submitted with an order to the address on file with the customer's credit card issuer. Merchants can then choose to reject or allow transactions based on the AVS response codes. AFDS includes an AVS filter that assists the decision process by allowing merchants the additional options of flagging AVS transactions for monitoring purposes, or holding them for manual review.
• Enhanced CCV Handling Filter – Like AVS, Card Code Verification (CCV) is a standard feature of the payment gateway. CCV uses a card's three- or four-digit number to validate customer information on file with the credit card association. Like the AVS Filter, the CCV Filter allows merchants the additional options of flagging CCV transactions for monitoring purposes, or holding them for manual review.
• Shipping Address Verification Filter – Verifies that the shipping address received with an order is a valid postal address.
• IP Shipping Address Mismatch Filter – Compare the shipping address provided with an order to the IP address of where the order originated from. This helps to determine whether or not the order is shipping to the country from which it originated.
• Regional IP Address Filter – Flag orders coming from specific regions or countries. You can choose to customize the filter actions based on an entire geographic area, or select country by country how to process transactions flagged by the filter.

 

Actions that can be performed on these filters:

• Process as normal and report filter(s) triggered - When this action is selected, transactions that trigger this filter are processed as normal, but are also reported in the Merchant Interface as triggering this filter. This action is useful if you want to "test" your filter settings.
• Authorize and hold for review - When this action is selected, transactions that trigger this filter are sent for authorization, and upon successful authorization are placed in the Authorized/Pending Review state. Once in Authorized/Pending Review, you will have 30 days to manually review and either approve or void the transaction. If no action is taken in the 30-day period, the transaction will expire. This action is useful if you want to review authorized transactions prior to submitting for settlement.
• Do not authorize, but hold for review - When this action is selected, transactions that trigger this filter are placed in the Pending Review state prior to being sent for authorization. Once in Pending Review, you will have 5 days to manually review and either approve or decline the transaction. Once you approve the transaction, it is sent for authorization. If no action is taken in the 5-day period, the transaction will expire. This action is useful if you want to review transactions prior to authorization to avoid incurring any associated authorization fees.
• Decline the transaction - When this action is selected, transactions that trigger the filter will be declined automatically prior to authorization. This is the most severe action you can take for a transaction.

NOTE: In the event that a transaction triggers more than one filter, and each filter is configured with a different action, the most severe filter action will be applied to the transaction. For example, you might configure filter A to decline all triggered transactions, and filter B to authorize but hold all triggered transactions. If a transaction triggers both filters A and B, it will be declined rather than authorized and held for review.  

For more details about our customizable solution to combat the most common types of online fraud, see our Advance Fraud Detection Suite White Paper.