Flagging (2024)

Flagging (1)

What Is Flagging?

In fraud, flagging is an automated or manual process performed by fraud prevention software and/or fraud analysts. Organizations are alerted to suspicious, potentially fraudulent transactions, which can then be flagged for further investigation and manual review.

Visa alone processes around 29 million online card transactions per day. Ecommerce and other online financial activity continues to grow year on year.

Clearly, it’s not practical (or even feasible) for every electronic transaction to be manually checked. Flagging provides a way for organizations to focus their efforts on reviewing sufficiently suspicious activity while allowing genuine transactions to pass through systems with minimal friction.

Various things can be flagged – for example, individual values like a specific type of payment card, an account, a connection, a transaction value, or even an IP address or location.

Often, fraud prevention solutions consider a wide range of factors and data points before combining them to create a risk score. Crossing a certain threshold of risk results in an account or transaction being flagged.

Of course, sophisticated anti-fraud solutions will allow businesses to define and customize this threshold based on their risk appetite.

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How Does Flagging Work?

Flagging usually involves the use of various rules and thresholds controlled by fraud prevention software. This can run in the background and while transactions are taking place, often via API integration. If any activity occurs which raises a red flag, a transaction can be paused, suspended/blocked, and then passed over for manual review.

For example:

  • A company usually dealing in low-value transactions may configure its fraud prevention software to flag transactions over a certain value.
  • A business dealing exclusively with US clients could configure its systems to flag transactions originating overseas, or via a VPN connection.
  • An account making a series of transactions in suspiciously quick succession could be blocked and flagged for review.

Activity can be flagged as suspicious for a single reason or multiple reasons. A fraud score model can assign weight to various different factors. For example, certain transaction thresholds could increase a risk score by a different amount.

Locations can be highly significant too when calculating risk. For example, Stripe found that businesses in Latin America experience a fraud rate that is 97% higher than that seen in North America. This is the kind of thing companies should bear in mind when configuring flagging rules.

Fraud prevention software is usually highly customizable, allowing businesses to tailor their flagging rules to their industry and their usual business patterns. Increasingly, machine learning is used to provide systems with extra data to work with.

Why Is Flagging Important?

Flagging is a key element of fraud prevention. It alerts companies to suspicious financial activity and provides a middle ground where transactions can be manually reviewed rather than rejected outright or allowed through unchecked.

Automated flagging helps businesses to take a scientific and data-driven approach to which transactions are subject to additional scrutiny and enables minimal-friction strategies such as dynamic friction.

By carefully configuring such automation, companies can tailor flagging to their exact requirements. For example, an ecommerce store selling chocolates will have a very different risk profile (and exposure to different types of fraud) than a neobank or casino site.

What Red Flags Indicate Fraud?

Many potential red flags could indicate fraudulent activity.
They include:

  • transactions taking place at unusual times of the day
  • users logging on from unfamiliar locations
  • payments being made to new or unusual accounts
  • unusually high or low transaction values
  • the use of VPNs and proxies
  • the use of throwaway email accounts or virtual phone numbers
  • missing convincing online activity – the digital footprint that the average person has
  • several transactions taking place in quick succession

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How Does Flagging Help Fight Fraud?

Flagging helps to fight fraud both in the moment and over the long term. Flagging rules can help organizations to catch fraudsters in the act, prevent them from even getting a chance to attempt their schemes, and minimize financial losses – both to the company and to legitimate users.

Meanwhile, over time, flagging can help to build intelligence on new patterns of fraudulent behavior. This can entail identifying suspicious cards, locations, IP addresses and more, stopping fraud rings or even uncovering new strategies utilized by online criminals.

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Flagging (2)
Flagging (2024)

FAQs

What does it mean to go flagging? ›

1. dwindling. 2. weak, fatigued, or drooping.

What does it mean when you flag something? ›

​[transitive] flag something to draw attention to information that you think is important, especially by putting a special mark next to it. I've flagged the paragraphs that we need to look at in more detail.

What is the synonym of flagging? ›

flagging (adjective as in languid) Strongest matches. dwindling fading listless sagging slumping waning weakening.

What is an example of a flagging sentence? ›

Examples from the Collins Corpus

The young colonel picked up his flight gear and trotted away, flagging down a maintenance truck and hopping a ride back to headquarters.

What is flagging behavior? ›

common in mammals, is “flagging,” the lifting of the tail to reveal its white undersurface. The white fur shows only in fright situations when the animal raises its tail as it bounds away. Biologists do not agree about the exact meaning of this common mammalian alarm response.

What does flagging people mean? ›

: to call a penalty on : penalize. a lineman flagged for being offside. flag.

What does it mean to flag a concern? ›

to warn or tell people about something that is important or is a problem: I'd just like to flag a couple of issues with the project. The inspection team flagged a potential groundwater pollution problem.

What does thanks for flagging mean? ›

"thanks for flagging" is a correct and usable phrase in written English. This phrase can be used as a way to thank someone for bringing up an important topic or issue. For example, "Thanks for flagging the need for more diversity in our boardroom - I'm glad we're now taking steps to address this issue.".

What does flagging mean in slang? ›

becoming weaker, slower, or less effective: He's trying to revive his flagging career.

What is flagging up? ›

verb. tr; adverb to bring (something) to someone's attention; point out.

What is the verb form of flagging? ›

/flæɡ/ Verb Forms. he / she / it flags. past simple flagged. -ing form flagging.

What does flagging mean in military? ›

When a Soldier is flagged by the Army, it means that he is not eligible for certain favorable personnel actions. These actions include reenlistment, a permanent change of station (PCS), promotion (pinning on OR selection by a board), military awards and decorations, and military schools.

What does flagging mean in school? ›

There are some positive flags, like “Good Work!” But most flags address negative performance—e.g., “Low Grades,” “Attendance/Participation Concern,” and “In “Danger of Failing.” The flag's name serves as a subject line for the email, and your comments are your message to the student—i.e., your comments define the issue ...

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