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

1. Signal Collection – IP/device matching, velocity checks, blacklist databases, manual reviews.
2. Scoring Model – assign risk scores by cohort (new accounts, high-volume referrers, geo mismatch).
3. Workflow Automation – auto-flag, queue for review, or pause rewards until verified.
4. Investigation Runbook – define evidence gathering, communication templates, and resolution paths.
5. 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-design to discourage risky behavior.

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