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Rewardful: Self-Referral Fraud Detection

Rewardful Paid Intermediate

The specific worry in the question is people gaming the program, so here is a concrete, working example of what fraud detection actually looks like: matching new referrals against affiliate details, customer emails, IP addresses, and payment methods to catch self-referrals and rings. Even if you never buy it, the page is a checklist of the signals you should watch for in your own program. It is a starting point for building or buying gaming defences, not the only option (Peach, Talkable, and Viral Loops offer similar checks).

• Referral rings and self-referrals get caught by overlaps: same IP, same payment method, matching emails across referrer and referee, and clusters of low-engagement accounts.
• Detection should flag for human review rather than auto-reject, so you can void the reward without punishing a genuine share by mistake.
• Whether you use a tool or roll your own checks, decide up front what a valid referral is (an active or paying user, not just a signup) so gaming has nothing to grab.