Introduction
In today’s world, email remains one of the most widely used communication tools for both personal and business purposes. Many websites also rely on email addresses to verify a user’s identity. Unfortunately, fraudsters often exploit this by using email addresses to commit fraudulent activities, such as creating fake accounts for attacks or placing fraudulent orders. As a result, merchants need an effective way to identify whether their recent transactions involve unusual or suspicious email addresses.
FraudLabs Pro is proud to introduce a new, innovative feature for merchants: Email Pattern Anomaly Detection. This advanced tool provides timely alerts if unusual patterns or anomalies in email addresses are detected within transactions. By monitoring the email usage on a daily basis, merchants can effectively identify and address irregularities, helping to mitigate issues before they escalate.
What is Email Pattern Anomaly Detection
Email Pattern Anomaly Detection is an advanced fraud prevention tool that monitors how email addresses are used across multiple transactions, identifies unusual or suspicious trends, and instantly notifies merchants of potential risks.
Unlike traditional checks that only validate whether an email is valid, disposable, or blacklisted, this feature goes deeper by analyzing email patterns. For example, if your customers normally use emails with a pattern of letter + digit such as johndoe123@gmail.com, but a sudden surge of unusual patterns with dashes or underscores appears, like john-1990_hehe@gmail.com, the system will flag it as an anomaly and send you a notification via email or Slack, based on your settings.
By identifying these irregularities, merchants can uncover hidden fraud attempts that would otherwise bypass traditional email validation checks.
Key Advantages of Email Pattern Anomaly Detection
Simplified Email Monitoring
With this feature, merchants can easily track changes in email patterns across their transactions. This saves valuable time that would otherwise be spent manually reviewing and categorizing email addresses.
Early Anomaly Detection
The system helps merchants spot emerging trends before they develop into significant issues. By detecting unusual email addresses early, merchants can minimize potential losses and strengthen fraud prevention efforts.
How to Enable Email Pattern Anomaly Detection
If you are interested on trying this new feature, here are the detailed steps on how to enable the feature:
(Note: Please note that this feature is only available for merchants that are subscribed to the Medium plan, or higher plan. Please visit the pricing page for the upgrade).
- Login to your FraudLabs Pro merchant dashboard, and go to your account setting as shown in the screenshot below:
- In the setting page, scroll to the bottom until you see the “Smart Detection” section.
- In the Smart Detection section, you can see there is one button for email pattern anomaly detection. This button is to set the detection on or off. By default, this feature is set to off, and you will need to click to enable the feature.
- Then, you will need to set the notification type. Here, you can see the two notification methods supported, which are email and Slack. Please take note that for the Slack notification, you will need to enable the Slack notification at the above section.
- Click on the “SAVE CHANGES” button, and you are now ready to use this feature. It will run in the background and send you the notification when there is any anomalous email address pattern detected in their past transactions.
How to View Email Pattern Report
FraudLabs Pro introduces the Email Pattern Report to give merchants deeper insights into their customers’ email patterns. This report provides two key views:
- Types of Email Patterns – A breakdown of the different email patterns (e.g., digit, letter, digit+letter and so on) detected in your transactions.
- Email Pattern by Date – A timeline view that helps you identify unusual email patterns.
To access the report, simply log in to your FraudLabs Pro merchant area. Next, go to Report > Email Pattern. Then, you will see the email pattern report as below:
(Note: Please note that this report is only available for merchants that are subscribed to the Medium plan, or higher plan. Please visit the pricing page for the upgrade).
Conclusion
The newly introduced Email Pattern Anomaly Detection feature by FraudLabs Pro empowers merchants to analyze email trends within past transactions. By leveraging this tool, merchants can quickly identify suspicious email patterns that may signal fraudulent activity. This allows them to intercept risky transactions early and take the appropriate action to reduce potential losses.
Secure Transactions, Seamless Business
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