IPQS Fraud Prevention API Use Cases


IPQS fraud prevention solutions can solve issues with abuse and data quality across any industry. This guide provides best practices for different use case scenarios involving fraudulent behavior and an overview of which IPQS products & services are best to solve specific issues.


User Scoring, Application Approval, & Registration Validation

Perform enterprise grade data verification to screen new users and automatically perform user validation with a simple API request. Improve the value of your user data with proper standardization and expert validation to prevent fraudulent sign ups and low quality users.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Device Fingerprinting - Analyze device reputation with a simple JavaScript pixel that scores over 300 user data points to detect bots, location spoofing, device spoofing, and thousands of high risk behavior patterns. Track duplicate accounts and device switching.
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - Tap into the most accurate IP intelligence data to detect open proxies, residential proxies, private VPNs, and abusive connections.
  • Email Verification - Quickly determine user quality by validating a user's email address is active without any conformation required by the user. Also tap into email risk scores with advanced email reputation to identify addresses associated with malicious behavior.
  • Phone Validation - Confirm the phone number is valid and active with the phone carrier, indicating a good quality user. This service provides an automatic response and does not require an SMS text message confirmation.
  • Address Verification - Validate the user's postal address is active, another strong indication that a user is legitimate.

PRO-TIP: Quickly validate user accounts by combining Proxy Detection, Phone Reputation, and Address Validation into one simple API check with IPQS User Scoring API.


Bot Detection & IP Intelligence

Deploy instant protection to block bot traffic without any false-positives or impact on the user experience. Accurately pinpoint bot activity for even the most sophisticated software that imitates human behavior. Through IPQS device fingerprinting technology, it is possible to detect virtual machines, RDP connections, TeamViewer, emulators, and similar software to spoof devices.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Bot Fingerprinting - Easily detect non-human requests made by bots and even automated behavior controlled by humans.
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - World class IP intelligence makes it easy to target IP addresses with a history of abuse or bot activity.

PRO-TIP: The "bot_status" data point on API results will indicate if the record has been associated with bot behavior.


Chargeback Prevention & Payment Screening

Detect suspicious payments likely to result in chargebacks without hurting legitimate purchases. IPQS detects stolen credit cards and high risk user behavior commonly associated with payment fraud.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Device Fingerprinting - Identify suspicious behavior patterns, users lying about their location, device emulation, and other patterns commonly seen with fraudulent payments.
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - Filter abusive IP addresses associated with unauthorized transactions and high risk behavior including residential proxies.
  • Payment Screening - Analyze complete transaction details including billing details, order details, and more for comprehensive risk analysis.

PRO-TIP: Adjust additional rules with your account's transaction scoring settings.


Click Fraud, Affiliate Fraud, Install Quality, & Abusive Traffic

Easily detect click fraud, invalid clicks, fake installs, non-human actions, and other abusive behavior that can negatively impact ad performance and overall ad spend. Filter all forms of invalid traffic in real-time without affecting legitimate users. Completely prevent affiliate fraud by pinpointing abusive affiliates and traffic sources.

Recommended IPQS Solutions

PRO-TIP: We can help prepare a monthly report for your traffic provider to request a refund for all invalid clicks.


Email Validation, Deliverability Scoring, & Email Reputation Analysis

Improve your deliverability and inboxing with enterprise grade validation which also detects spam traps and frequent complainers. Keep your domain and IP reputation healthy while also detecting fake accounts and invalid mailboxes.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Email Verification - Filter invalid, disposable, and abusive email addresses - even if they are completely valid with the mail service provider. Additionally, remove Spam Traps from hurting your email deliverability.

PRO-TIP: Make sure your IPs and domains are warmed up before sending large volume mail drops. We recommend starting with pristine condition emails that are rated with "suspect" as false and "spam_trap_score" as "none".


Account Takeover Fraud & Phishing Attacks

Monitor suspicious logins that could indicate an account has been compromised by ATO. Real-time scoring enables account takeover protection and credential stuffing mitigation to identify unauthorized access before it negatively impacts your users.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Device Fingerprinting - Profile user behavior patterns and search millions of fraudulent fingerprints associated with devices commonly used for account takeover abuse.
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - Get alerted for suspicious logins outside of a user's normal patterns in addition to high risk IP addresses.

PRO-TIP: Machine learning & AI automatically find the best scoring options for your audience based on user behavior.


Geo Enforcement & Geo Location Spoofing

Protect your content and services from being used in unauthorized cities or countries. Satisfy regulators and compliance agreements with accurate geo spoofing protection by IPQS. This use case is popular with gambling and streaming sites, such as OTT content protection.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - Detect connections that facilitate geo spoofing to prevent location restricted content from being circumvented. Filter proxy and VPN connections without penalizing legitimate connections across residential, mobile, and office networks.

PRO-TIP: Use a simple API call to quickly determine if a user has enabled a high risk connection likely to be used for evading geographic restrictions.


Lead Generation Data Validation

Score user & click data collected via lead generation practices to detect fake user information, click fraud, fraudulent submissions, high risk affiliate sources, and low quality data.

Recommended IPQS Solutions
  • Device Fingerprinting - Detect bots, automated submissions, duplicate users, device and location spoofing, and thousands of patterns of high risk behavior with a simple JavaScript tag to produce an overall Fraud Score.
  • Proxy Detection & IP Reputation - Perform accurate risk analysis of an IP address including residential proxy detection to identify high risk leads.
  • Email Verification - Filter invalid, disposable, and abusive email addresses - even if they are completely valid with the mail service provider. Additionally, remove Spam Traps from hurting your email deliverability.
  • Phone Reputation - Score the user's phone number by flagging invalid, disposable, and throwaway phone numbers to improve detection for fake leads.
  • Address Validation - Validate a user's physical address as further checks for lead generation data quality.

PRO-TIP: Bundle Proxy Detection, Phone Reputation, and Address Validation into one check with IPQS User & Transaction Scoring API.