Fraud protection screens every gift card purchase made through your online checkout and lets you automatically allow, hold, or block payments based on their risk — so fraudulent purchases don't turn into live gift card balances. It applies to online checkout purchases only; it doesn't affect in-person Clover POS or Shopify POS sales.
How it works
Every online gift card purchase is screened before the gift card is issued. Loopz combines three things to decide what to do with a payment:
A risk score (0–100) calculated from signals like card verification (CVV), billing address checks, IP reputation, and the distance between the buyer's IP and billing address.
Your rules — conditions you define that force a payment to be reviewed, allowed, or blocked.
Your lists — reusable allow/block lists (for example a trusted-IP allow list or a suspicious-email-domain block list) that rules can reference.
Each payment ends up with one of three outcomes:
Allow — the purchase goes through normally and the gift card is issued to the recipient right away.
Review — the payment is captured, but the gift card is held and the recipient is not notified. You decide whether to approve or decline it. The purchaser is also notified that their gift order is being reviewed.
Block — the payment is blocked (or captured and immediately refunded) and no gift card is issued.
Where to find it
In the dashboard sidebar, under Configuration, open Fraud Prevention. It has three tabs: Overview, Rules, and Lists. The Overview tab shows payment volume, your acceptable risk score, and a table of every screened payment with its status (for example In Review, Succeeded, or Blocked & Refunded). Click any row to open its details.
Setting your acceptable risk score
Use the risk-score slider on the Overview tab to choose how aggressive screening should be. Payments with a risk score equal to or higher than your acceptable risk score are sent for review before the gift card is activated. Lower the threshold to block more fraud (more purchases get reviewed); raise it to block less. The bands — Low Risk, Suspicious, Risky, and High Risk — show where a score falls.
Rules
The Rules tab is where you define conditions that override or supplement the risk score. Rules are grouped by action:
Review rules — if a review rule matches, the payment is allowed but the gift card is not issued until you approve it.
Allow rules — if an allow rule matches, the payment is allowed even if a block rule would otherwise match.
Block rules — if a block rule matches, the payment is blocked.
Use Create Review Rule, Create Allow Rule, or Create Block Rule to add a rule. A rule is a single condition built from a field, an operator, and a value — for example risk score greater than or equal to 90, amount greater than or equal to 100.00, card CVV verification failed, card postal code verification failed, or an email, IP address, or country matching one of your lists. Each rule has a status toggle (enable or disable it without deleting) and shows how many payments it has matched.
Lists
The Lists tab lets you create reusable allow/block lists — like a suspicious email-domain block list or a trusted IP-address allow list — that you reference from rules. This keeps rules tidy when you want to match against many values.
When a purchase is held for review
When a purchase matches a review rule (or scores at or above your acceptable risk score):
The payment is captured — the customer's card is charged.
The gift card is created but held, so the recipient is not notified and can't use it yet.
The purchaser receives a "your gift is under review" email.
You receive a notification email so you can make a decision.
The merchant review email
Loopz emails your program's notification email addresses a "purchase needs review" message summarizing the held purchase — the program, gift amount, payment card, customer, and purchase time — with a Review purchase button that links straight to the payment in the dashboard.
Reviewing a held purchase
Open a held payment either from the Review purchase button in the email, or by clicking an In Review row in the Overview payment attempts table. This opens the Payment details screen, which shows the payment, billing address, customer, and IP address; the gift card the payment would fund; and a risk analysis with the matched fraud rule, the risk score and risk level, and a list of risk indicators (each marked as a pass or a concern).
At the top of the risk analysis you'll see two actions:
Approve — releases the gift card to the recipient. The recipient gets their gift card email, the purchaser gets a confirmation, the payment status becomes Succeeded, and (if connected) the card syncs to your Shopify or Square store.
Decline — refunds the payment to the customer, closes the gift card so it's never issued, and sends the purchaser a decline email. The payment status becomes Refunded.
Once a decision is made, the screen records who reviewed it and when. A review decision is final, so review the details before approving or declining.
FAQ
Does the customer get charged while a purchase is under review?
Yes. The payment is captured up front. If you decline, it's refunded; if you approve, the charge stands and the gift card is released.
Can the recipient use the gift card before I approve it?
No. While a purchase is under review the gift card is held and the recipient isn't notified, so the balance can't be used yet.
What's the difference between a review rule and a block rule?
A review rule holds the purchase for your decision (you can still approve it). A block rule stops the purchase outright.
How do allow rules interact with block rules?
An allow rule wins. If a payment matches both an allow rule and a block rule, it's allowed — useful for whitelisting a trusted customer or IP.
Where does the review email go?
To the notification address configured for your program. Make sure it's an inbox you monitor so held purchases don't sit waiting. You can configure which users receive the review email on the Users & Permissions settings screen under the Notifications section.