Refund Abuse Integration

Labelling

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Refund Abuse labelling uses a tags‑first approach. This gives teams the flexibility to express granular, policy‑aligned behaviours and capture specific fraud contexts more effectively than binary labels.

The Benefits of Tags

There are two main reasons why using tags can be beneficial:

  1. Tags can act as a proactive defense against refund abuse, enabling the use of Ravelin’s rule engine and Connect network to prevent abuse as it happens.

  2. Precise tags can be used to refine the model, enhancing its ability to distinguish between genuine customers, potential refund abusers, opportunists and return fraudsters, ultimately improving predictive accuracy.

Tip: Keep your tag set focused and documented. If you need help defining a tag taxonomy, see “Need help?” below.

Recommendations on Tagging

Connecting Tags to Rules

Adding a tag on a customer currently has no direct impact on future orders placed or refunds requested by that customer. To influence future actions based on these tags, you must set up a rule in the Ravelin dashboard at the relevant checkpoint.

For example, you might prevent known refund abusers from making purchases at the checkout checkpoint or automatically approve refunds for trusted customers at the refund request checkpoint.

Effective Tagging Strategies

  • Be Descriptive: Apply one or more tags that describe the behaviour or scenario you want to capture, for example: “Serial returner,” “INR suspected,” “Double refund,” or another policy‑specific tag.
  • Leave Comments: When you tag a customer, we recommend you leave a comment. Explain why you tagged the customer and include any additional evidence you found. These are invaluable to Ravelin and your internal teams for future context.
  • Maintain Taxonomy: Keep your tag set focused, and pair what you configure in Settings → Tags (name and description) with clear internal guidance on how each tag should be used. For example, define when it should be applied or removed, and how it will be interpreted in your own reporting and by Ravelin.

Note on Manual Reviews

We have removed the “Refund Abuse type” manual review option from the dashboard and API. Previously, reviewers could select binary labels such as “Refund Abuse” or “Not Refund Abuse.” This workflow is now deprecated in favour of tags to provide richer, client‑specific semantics. If you previously relied on manual review endpoints, please transition to using tags.

Need help?

Mapping your existing labels to tags? Contact your Account Manager for support on taxonomy design and rule automation.

Next steps

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