Using Helcim Fraud Defender

Helcim's Fraud Defender provides an estimation of risk based on an analysis of 7 transaction factors. The result is displayed as a confidence score, ranging from 0.0 (high-risk) to 10.0 (low-risk). This score is a weighted average of each factor's individual score.

Merchants should note that this is only an estimation of risk, and that Helcim makes no guarantees on the final transaction or chargeback outcome. Merchants must agree to our Terms of Service before enabling the Helcim Fraud Defender on their account.

How to use Helcim Fraud Defender 

1. The confidence score result can be viewed manually by administrators under the Helcim transaction view (image below).
2. Helcim also supports confidence scoring via an API call based on a provided transaction ID.
3. Finally, ecommerce transactions (Payment Pages, Online Store, Commerce API, Helcim.js and third party plugins, like WooCommerce), can be configured to automatically be declined (voided) based on a score threshold, set in the Helcim Defender settings.

Below the Score and Fraud Defender Analysis are additional details on the issuing bank and the customer's billing and shipping address. You can use this information to further evaluate the potential risk of the transaction.

To learn how to enable/set Helcim Fraud Defender for your business, please click here.

Calculated Risk Factors

Factor #1 | CVV Security Code

All major credit card brand cards have a security code printed on the card. Fraudsters using stolen card numbers will usually not have the CVV code, as it is against PCI DSS compliance to save these codes when saving customers' card information into a database.

Factor #2 | Address Verification Service (AVS)

The address verification service (AVS) takes the street address (one line) and the postal/zip code and compares it with what the cardholder's bank has on file. Chargebacks with an AVS response of X, Y or Z (match or partial match) are most often ruled in favor of the merchant, as long as there is proof of shipping delivery to that specific address.

Factor #3 | Transaction Size

Fraudsters will often purchase items that they can resell, like a specific shirt of every size or color, or a large quantity of the same item. The Helcim Fraud Defender compares every new order with the average transaction size listed at the time of application and lowers the score if the transaction's size is considerably larger.

Factor #4 | Billing & Shipping

Transactions with matching billing and shipping addresses are usually considered less risky. Fraudsters will often use the real billing address of the stolen cardholder, but will put a different address for the shipping destination.

Factor #5 | Shipping Location

This factor determines whether the shipping destination is in the same country as the billing address.

Factor #6 | Bank BIN

Based on the first 6 digits of the credit card number, Helcim can establish which issuing bank provided the credit card. The Helcim Fraud Defender will verify whether the cardholder's bank is in the same country as the customer's billing address.

Factor #7 | IP Address Location

This will verify whether the customer's IP is in the same city, province/state, and country as the billing address.