Private preview
Refund abuse prevention Private preview
Use refund abuse signals to detect and prevent serial refund abuse patterns.
Refund abuse happens when customers request refunds for goods or services they’ve already received and plan to keep.
A customer might:
- Falsely claim a product wasn’t delivered or was defective
- Request a refund after fully consuming a digital good or service
- Repeatedly request refunds across multiple transactions on the same card or account
Radar assesses the likelihood that a payment is from a serial refund abuser.
You can enable the refund abuse risk control on the risk controls page in the Dashboard to automatically block these payments, or use the refund abuse risk level to write custom rules.
Request to join the preview for the payment signal or the abuse signal for refunds.
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How the refund abuse risk level works
Radar assigns a refund abuse risk level ( refund_abuse_risk_level) to each payment, based on the customer’s refund behavior across Stripe. Possible values are normal, elevated, and highest.
The risk level reflects the likelihood that a payment will result in a refund policy violation, or that a refund is from a customer violating your policies. It doesn’t reflect the likelihood that the payment is fraudulent or the customer is malicious. Use the refund abuse risk level to enforce your refund abuse policies, not as a standalone fraud signal.
Block or review payments based on refund abuse risk
Enable the refund abuse risk control
Enable the refund abuse risk control on the risk controls page in the Dashboard. Radar then automatically blocks payments from customers who are likely refund abusers. You can monitor performance and review affected payments in the Dashboard.
This control applies to card payments only.
Write custom rules
For more granular control, write custom rules using the refund_abuse_risk_level attribute to act on payments that match normal, elevated, or highest. For example:
- Block if:refund _ abuse _ risk _ level: = 'highest'
- Review if:refund _ abuse _ risk _ level: = 'elevated'
Query refund abuse data in Sigma
You can query the radar_abuse_prevention_attributes table in Stripe Sigma to analyze refund abuse patterns. For example, to view payments with an elevated or highest refund abuse risk level:
SELECT
transaction_id,
refund_abuse_risk_level,
created
FROM radar_abuse_prevention_attributes
WHERE refund_abuse_risk_level IN ('elevated', 'highest')
ORDER BY created DESC