Referral Fraud Detection Skill
When to Use
- Designing safeguards for new referral initiatives.
- Investigating suspicious referral spikes, duplicate accounts, or payout anomalies.
- Reporting on program integrity for finance, legal, or compliance teams.
Framework
- Signal Collection – IP/device matching, velocity checks, blacklist databases, manual reviews.
- Scoring Model – assign risk scores by cohort (new accounts, high-volume referrers, geo mismatch).
- Workflow Automation – auto-flag, queue for review, or pause rewards until verified.
- Investigation Runbook – define evidence gathering, communication templates, and resolution paths.
- Feedback Loop – update heuristics, adjust incentives, and communicate policy changes.
Templates
- Fraud monitoring dashboard outline (metrics, thresholds, owners).
- Investigation log (case ID, referrer, signals, action taken, notes).
- Policy update checklist (legal, comms, ops, partner notifications).
Tips
- Combine automated checks with random manual audits for accuracy.
- Align with legal/finance on clawback procedures before launch.
- Share learnings with
incentive-designto discourage risky behavior.