Open Fraud Protection. The first tab, User Blocking, is described as "Block repeat fake COD orders by email, phone, IP address, or postal code". Everything on this tab is checked when a standard COD form order is submitted, so a blocked customer never creates one. Orders taken through the Buy now button, card deposits included, are never checked against these lists. The Shopify save bar at the top commits the whole tab.
The card Suggested blocks (last 30 days) shows "Customers with cancelled COD orders from recent Shopify history", each row with a count of cancelled and fulfilled orders and a Block this phone or Block this email button. Adding one is not enough on its own: the app tells you "Added to block list. Click Save to apply." The phone numbers it inserts carry their country code.
The Block lists card takes one value per line. There are boxes for Emails to block, Phone numbers to block and IP addresses to block. Phone numbers work with or without a country code, because your list and the number on the order are put into the same form before they are compared. A separate IP whitelist card holds IP addresses to always allow, for your own office or test machines.
Postal code restrictions has three modes: No restriction, which is the default, Exclude these postal codes and Only allow these postal codes. Fill in Postal codes one per line. They are matched exactly, capital letters included, so write them the way your customers type them. On the allow only mode, an order with no postal code is blocked.
Limit orders made from the same customer in X hours stops the same person ordering again and again. The help text explains how the customer is recognised: "To determine the customer we use a combination of IP address, email or phone number." Any one of the three is enough on its own, so a shared office connection or a mobile network address can block unrelated people. Leave the hours empty and it counts as 24. Block orders if they contain more than X quantity of products catches the bulk order nobody intends to pay for. Both are off until you tick them.
The Block message card holds Message shown when an order is blocked, which appears under the submit button. Keep it neutral and give a way to reach you.
Combine blocking with SMS verification: one stops known offenders, the other invented phone numbers.
Review the suggestions every few weeks, since the list only looks at recent history.
Stuck on any of this? Open the chat in the bottom right corner of the app and we will help you set it up.
