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-design to discourage risky behavior.