Every flagship phone launch brings a rush of buyers, and fraudsters arrive with them. This global mobile provider needed to stop launch-driven fraud on in-store orders that often arrived without device or IP data. After layering a calibrated Pipl Trust Score into its existing rules, it prevented 480 fraudulent transactions and saved $450K in product in its first full month, while holding a 99.8% acceptance rate.
Launch fraud is predictable in timing and hard to separate from real demand. 3 conditions made it costly.
Fraudsters knew when demand would peak and timed their orders to blend in with a surge of legitimate buyers.
Retail purchases often lacked device and IP data, leaving fewer ways to tell a real customer from a fraudulent one.
Each launch brought more manual reviews and more rejected orders, adding friction for the customers the provider wanted to approve.
Pipl calibrated a Trust Score to the provider's retail flow, and the team layered it into the rules it already ran. Scores below 300 powered targeted reject rules. Where device and IP data were missing, identity signals carried the weight: how long an email had existed, what kind of phone line was on the order, whether the address was commercial, and whether names matched across email and address. Trust signals were also combined with the provider's existing fraud screening score to focus manual review on the orders that needed it.
