How Can I Protect Myself Against Donation Fraud?

Donation fraud is a real and growing concern, especially for eCommerce stores offering digital products like charitable donations. Fraudsters may target donation apps to test stolen credit cards using small charges. These fraudulent transactions not only affect your store’s integrity but can result in chargebacks and financial loss.

Why Fraudsters Target Donation Apps

Fraud rings often use automated scripts to detect digital products in online stores—like donation products—because:

• They are typically low-cost, making them ideal for testing stolen credit card information without drawing attention.

• Donation products often don’t require shipping, reducing the need for a verified delivery address.

• They often bypass traditional fraud detection tools due to their low risk profile.

✅ What You Should Do to Prevent Donation Fraud

1. Install a Trusted Fraud Detection App

   1. Use Shopify fraud detection and security apps to add an extra layer of protection.

   2. Explore options here: Shopify Fraud Apps

2. Hide the Donation Product Detail Page

   1. Prevent fraud bots from detecting the product by hiding the product detail page and add-to-cart buttons.

   2. Follow this guide: How to hide donation product pages

3. Review your monthly donations

   1. We send a donation summary on the 1st of each month. Please review your donations in Analytics > Customer Details for any unusual activity. 

   2. If you spot anything suspicious, email support@dailykarma.com before the 3rd, when charges are processed.
      

4. Monitor Orders for Unusual Donation Patterns
   Look for the following red flags:

   1. Orders with donations only (no other items)

   2. Multiple small donations (e.g., $1) in rapid succession

   3. Orders using similar or identical address patterns (e.g., same street name)

   4. Orders with repeating name patterns (e.g., Victor Smith, Laura Smith, Victor White...)
      
      

What DailyKarma Is Doing to Help

We monitor donation activity on our end as a courtesy to you:

• Daily velocity checks. which automatically flag and limit suspicious behavior (e.g., multiple rapid-fire $1 transactions using stolen credit cards). This helps protect your store from donation-based fraud attempts and reduces the risk of chargebacks.

• Proactive alerts if we notice patterns that may indicate fraud

• Refund support for confirmed fraudulent donations reported by the deadline

⚠️ Important: We do everything we can to assist, but you are ultimately responsible for identifying and reporting fraud in your store.

Billing and Refund Deadline

As outlined in Section 1.5 of our Terms of Service:

• All donations accrued via your store or DailyKarma-powered programs will be billed on the 3rd day of each month.

• Once a donation is charged, it is automatically sent to charity and cannot be refunded.

• You must report fraudulent donations by emailing us at support@dailykarma.com before the 3rd day of the month to be eligible for a refund.