AmmoReady Helps Firearms Retailers Fight Online Fraud

When you receive an online order through your AmmoReady storefront we run every piece of information we receive about the transaction through a fraud detection network that processes one trillion events per year representing over 34,000 websites and apps across every industry, every region, and every fraud vector.

Based on the score we get back, we display a Low, Elevated, or High “threat level” in the Threat Assessment widget which is displayed at the top right corner of every order. When the threat is Low or Elevated the widget is pretty boring and doesn’t display much. But when the threat is High, the widget will turn red, to get your attention, and display the specific data points that indicate a high likelihood of fraud.

It’s Always (Usually) Optics

If you get an order for 10 expensive scopes at 3am with a billing address in Indiana and a shipping address in Miami, that’s fraud. Most people who buy scopes online don’t do it at 3am and they don’t ship them all to a port in Miami for illegal export.

Usually, we see orders like this pop up on new accounts. Usually the merchant is inexperienced and is so excited that they immediately drop ship 10 expensive scopes to Miami. That’s an expensive way to learn that at the end of the day, unless you’re paying for “chargeback” protection via a third party like Signifyd, that no matter the circumstances, if you ship product and then get a chargeback because the credit card used was stolen, that’s on you and your gonna take the financial hit. So you gotta be careful.

Because the vast majority of fraud we have seen is specifically orders for optics using stolen credit cards, AmmoReady displays an explicit warning for any order over $250 that includes one or more optics.