Orders tagged as high risk

[PW_Man]

Hello Fellow Sellers.  I have been getting a lot of potentially high risk orders and I've cancelled all of them after trying to verify info and doing assessments on the orders.  I am curious to know how you've been handling these types of orders.  Should I let any of them through?  I've lost a lot of potential sales and paid back fees because of these.  Thanks in advance for the responses.

[giftsatbliss]

I have a bricks and mortar store and when these online orders come through as high risk (happens rarely for me) I always email the address given and check whether the delivery address is valid and that they know about the order. I never send out orders to a shipping address different to statement address. On the occasion that I did the order was fraudulent and I had to go through a complicated chargeback fraud system with the card issuer. As a small business I’d rather not lose my money. 

[JoesIdeas]

When I ran a store we used to have support contact the customer. The verification process changed a few times, but usually just from making contact you can get a feel for if it's a real person or not. If unsure, we would ask them to take a picture with their ID. Could be invasive to some people, so you could start lighter (explain your automated fraud system flagged the order, ask them about the details, like why they are placing the order from a different country, or whatever the details are).

I did an analysis and shared my experience here: How to Deal with Fraudulent Orders and Minimize Chargebacks on Shopify

If you're letting 0 high risk orders through, you're probably cancelling legit orders. You might consider starting small, like letting x% of high risk orders through, based on your criteria of them being the least risky, start there and increase it until you start getting chargebacks, then dial it back to find the sweet spot.

This depends on the order value of course. Like gambling, if you're not comfortable risking the money (product) then just cancel it for peace of mind.

[Merchanto]

To handle potentially high-risk orders, consider setting clear criteria for what qualifies as a safe order based on your experience and any verification tools available. You might also establish a process for verifying customer information, such as confirming shipping addresses or using phone verification, before canceling orders. It could be beneficial to keep a record of high-risk orders and any trends you notice to inform your decisions moving forward. Lastly, consider balancing caution with a calculated risk for higher-value orders that seem legitimate, as not all may be fraudulent.