Your store includes built-in fraud protection that helps detect and prevent suspicious payment activity during checkout. It runs automatically in the background — no setup or configuration is required.
How it works
Fraud protection automatically monitors checkout activity on your store. It analyzes session behavior and payment details in real time to identify potentially fraudulent transactions, such as card testing attacks or suspicious purchase patterns.
When suspicious activity is detected, the system may:
- Ask the customer to verify their identity — they’ll confirm their email address with a one-time verification code before completing the payment.
- Block the transaction — if the activity is identified as fraudulent, the checkout will be stopped and the customer may be asked to contact the store for assistance.
Legitimate customers can complete their purchase normally. The verification step only appears when unusual activity is detected.
What’s protected
Fraud protection works across your store’s checkout flows, including standard checkout, express checkout, and the order payment page. It integrates with supported payment gateways to analyze payment details as part of its fraud assessment.
Good to know
- No configuration needed. Fraud protection is active automatically on supported stores and currently cannot be disabled.
- Legitimate orders are not affected. The system is designed to minimize false positives. If the fraud detection service is temporarily unavailable, all transactions are allowed through to avoid disrupting sales.
- Automatic protection – Fraud protection runs automatically and does not require configuration. A merchant-facing dashboard for viewing fraud activity is planned for a future release.
Questions and support
↑ Back to topDo you still have questions and need assistance?
This documentation is about the free, core WooCommerce plugin, for which support is provided in our community forums on WordPress.org. By searching this forum, you’ll often find that your question has been asked and answered before.
If you haven’t created a WordPress.org account to use the forums, here’s how.
- If you’re looking to extend the core functionality shown here, we recommend reviewing available extensions in the WooCommerce Marketplace.
- Need ongoing advanced support or a customization built for WooCommerce? Hire a Woo Agency Partner.
- Are you a developer building your own WooCommerce integration or extension? Check our Developer Resources.
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