Make sure your promotions reach real customers.

FAQ

• What's the difference between promo abuse, bonus abuse, and policy abuse?

  They're the same core behaviour under different industry names. "Bonus abuse" is the iGaming term, "policy abuse" is common in ecommerce and payments, and "promo abuse" (or "promotion abuse") is the umbrella. In every case, someone creates fake or duplicate identities to extract promotional value without becoming a real customer.

• What is multi-accounting, and why does it enable promo abuse?

  Multi-accounting is one person or group operating many accounts that are meant to look unrelated. It's the engine behind most organized promo abuse attacks: each "new" account claims the offer again, and resets or spoofing hide the fact they're all connected. Reading location and device signals together is what exposes the link.

• Isn't this the same as KYC?

  No. KYC confirms an identity is valid. It doesn't tell you the same person is quietly running 250 "valid" identities from one living room. Location and device signals do. The two work best together: identity verification plus the physical reality behind it.

• How does location verification prevent promo abuse across industries?

  An IP address is roughly a 60-mile guess, and it collapses the moment someone uses a VPN or proxy. Precisely measured physical location (GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular, and IP together, down to a few square feet) is what tells you 250 "different" players are in the same room. The same signal works whether the offer is a bonus, a sign-up credit, or a coupon.

• We don't collect precise location. What now?

  You've still got options. Precise location gives you the best results, but plenty of our partners don't ask for it on day one. You can start with IP and device intelligence, then use precise location as a step-up prompt only when something's already been flagged.

• What about VPNs?

  We can tell the difference between a benign VPN and a malicious one. Someone on their office VPN looks nothing like someone hiding behind a proxy to fake eligibility, once you read the other signals around them.

• How do you stop coupon and referral code abuse?

  Same way we stop bonus abuse: connect the accounts behind the redemptions. Code stacking, self-referral loops, and duplicate accounts all rely on looking like separate people. Location and device signals surface the connection, so the discount reaches real shoppers.

• Best practices for designing a promotion that resists fraud?

  Design for the exploit before you launch. Cap value per verified person rather than per account, verify at the moment of sign-up rather than after the payout, and step up only the accounts that trip a signal. The goal is a promo that's easy for real customers and expensive for abusers.

• Why would GeoComply flag an account my team doesn't see as a real loss?

  Because that one account is rarely the whole story. The same tactic (spoofed location, reset devices, shared location signatures, coordinated timing) is usually running across many accounts, whether that's one person at scale, a script, or a group. Judging severity by a single account's dollar value undercounts the real exposure.

• How is promo abuse different from customer acquisition cost (CAC)?

  CAC is what you pay to win a real customer. Promo abuse is spend that never had a real customer at the other end. The line moves the moment an account's only purpose is to extract the offer and leave. Telling the two apart is exactly what location and device signals are for.