Business
Your product is being used by people who read the terms more carefully than you did.
Fraud rings test onboarding flows, referral bonuses, refund policies and payout timings methodically. A fintech becomes a mule-account factory; a marketplace pays refunds for goods that were never returned; a lending app funds synthetic identities. We look at your flows as an abuser would, quantify where the losses are coming from, and design controls that are proportionate.
- Review of onboarding, KYC, transaction, refund, payout and support flows for abuse paths
- Mule-account and synthetic-identity indicators built from your data and regulator guidance
- Account takeover, promo abuse and chargeback controls with measured friction
- Alignment with RBI, NPCI and marketplace rule expectations and with law-enforcement requests
Fixed price for the fraud risk assessment; control design and tuning support on a project or retainer basis.
Typical engagement
- Discovery
- Assessment report
- Control design and tuning
- Review
Who this is for
- Payment apps, wallets, neobanks and lending platforms seeing mule accounts and law-enforcement notices
- E-commerce and D2C brands losing money to refund, return and chargeback abuse
- Marketplaces with seller fraud, fake listings and collusive buyer-seller rings
- Gig and delivery platforms facing payout and referral abuse
- Companies whose fraud losses are rising faster than volume
- Teams that have a fraud rule set nobody has reviewed in a year
What is included
Flow abuse review
Every flow where value enters, moves or leaves, including sign-up, KYC, linking, transactions, refunds, cashback, referrals, payouts and support overrides, examined for how it is abused and what evidence your data already holds.
Loss analysis
Where losses, disputes, chargebacks and freezes are concentrated by channel, segment, product and time, so controls are targeted rather than blanket.
Mule and onboarding controls
Indicators of mule and synthetic accounts drawn from your data and from RBI and I4C patterns, onboarding checks that add friction only to risky applicants, and a process for freeze notices and police requests.
Account takeover and transaction controls
Device, session and behaviour signals, step-up authentication rules, velocity and limit design, and alerting that your operations team can act on.
Refund, chargeback and seller controls
Return and refund policy abuse controls, chargeback evidence and representment process, seller onboarding and listing checks for marketplaces.
Governance
A fraud risk register, metrics, review cadence and responsibilities, written to satisfy the RBI, NPCI, auditors and your board.
How we work
Discovery
Interviews with product, operations, support and finance, access to loss and dispute data, and a walkthrough of each flow as a customer and as an abuser.
Assessment report
Abuse paths, loss concentration, control gaps and a prioritised plan with expected effect and customer friction for each control.
Control design and tuning
Rules, signals and processes designed with your team, piloted and tuned against real data.
Review
Quarterly metrics review and rule tuning on a retainer, or handover to your fraud team.
What you walk away with
- A clear picture of where fraud losses actually come from
- Controls that add friction where risk is and nowhere else
- Fewer mule accounts and faster, cleaner responses to law-enforcement and regulator notices
- A fraud governance structure that stands up to inspection
What we do not do
We would rather lose an enquiry than mislead you.
- We do not supply or resell fraud-detection products; we design controls and help you choose tools where needed
- Fraud cannot be eliminated; the goal is measurable reduction at acceptable friction
- We do not take decisions on individual customers; we design the rules and the process by which you do
Frequently asked questions
What is a mule account and why do regulators care?
A mule account receives and forwards the proceeds of fraud, such as digital-arrest or investment scams, so the money is hard to trace. Accounts are opened with rented or synthetic identities or bought from account holders. Regulators and police see your platform as the place where the money landed, which brings freeze notices, scrutiny and reputational damage.
Will more controls hurt conversion?
Blanket controls do. Targeted controls, applied where risk signals are present, affect a small share of applicants and transactions. We estimate the friction impact for each control before you deploy it and measure it afterwards, so the trade-off is explicit rather than discovered in the growth numbers.
Our chargeback rate is rising. Is that fraud or something else?
Often both. "Friendly fraud" by customers who received the goods, merchant process failures such as late delivery or unclear descriptors, and genuine card fraud look similar in the headline numbers. The loss analysis separates them by reason code, product, channel and customer segment, and the representment process recovers what the evidence supports. Each needs a different fix, which is why the split matters.
Can you help us respond to police freeze notices faster?
Yes. A standard process for verifying that the request is genuine, acting within the required time, preserving the account records, documenting what was done and communicating with the customer keeps you compliant and reduces the operational load on support and compliance teams. It is part of the mule-account work, because the notices are where mule activity first becomes visible to most platforms.
Tell us where it hurts
Your product, monthly volumes, where losses or notices are concentrated, and what controls exist today. We reply with a scope and fixed price for the assessment within two working days.