Review risk evaluations on transactions
About risk evaluations
A risk evaluation shows Square’s determination of a transaction’s risk of fraud, indicating whether a transaction’s risk level is moderate or high based on our models. The evaluation is generated by Square’s proprietary machine learning models, which are informed by thousands of signals from our payments ecosystems and are continuously evolving.
Before you begin
We will evaluate all online transactions taken through Square or through our Connect v2 Transactions API endpoint.
Risk evaluations are provided as an informational tool only—you get to decide how to handle potentially fraudulent transactions processed on your account and you're ultimately responsible for any chargebacks.
If you don’t see a risk evaluation on your transaction, and it’s a qualifying online payment, it means our models didn’t indicate many signals typically associated with fraud or high risk activity. However, there’s always some amount of risk with taking card payments and there are other types of fraud that can happen after the payment has been taken.
For the absolute riskiest cases, Square will automatically decline.
View your risk evaluations
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Reporting > Transactions.
-
Review the circular icons on the transactions:
If a transaction has a moderate or high risk evaluation, an orange circular icon will replace the payment card icon to the left of the transaction description.
If it is a moderate risk evaluation, there will be one upward arrow in the orange icon.
If it is a high risk evaluation there will be two upward arrows in the orange icon.
If you’d like to filter transactions by risk level, select the All risk levels dropdown at the top. From there you have the option to view high risk only, moderate risk only, or high and moderate risk transactions.
Learn how to Set up Square Risk Manager to opt to receive email notifications for alert rules. Once you set up Risk Manager, alert rules for payments with moderate or high risk evaluations will be enabled by default.
Actions for moderate or high risk transactions
When a transaction is labeled as moderate or high risk, Square’s fraud detection signals have indicated this order may have been placed on a compromised payment card. To avoid losing product and having to deal with a dispute, you may want to consider issuing a refund and cancel the shipment if possible.
Moderate risk
Square’s models detect a slightly elevated number of signals indicating potential fraud. You may want to request additional information from the cardholder to verify their identity. To do this, you can make sure the cardholder’s shipping and billing addresses match, confirm the order with the cardholder, and verify any personal information. If you cannot verify the cardholder’s identity, you may want to consider issuing a refund to avoid a potential dispute.
High risk
Square’s models detect a high number of signals indicating potential fraud. If you’re unable to verify the cardholder’s identity and the legitimacy of the shipping address—or if the order seems suspicious (e.g. larger than normal, unverifiable information, unresponsive cardholder)—we recommend issuing a refund and canceling your fulfillment to protect your inventory and avoid dealing with a payment dispute down the line.
No risk evaluation
If you suspect a transaction is fraudulent, but it doesn’t have a risk evaluation, you can refund the transaction. To refund:
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Reporting > Transactions.
Select the transaction line in question to open the Transaction Details pop-up on the right of your screen.
Click Issue Refund in the pop-up, and when prompted for a reason, select Suspected fraud.
This information helps us better inform our models to catch these types of transactions in the future. Learn how to Manage customer refunds.