Affiliate Anomaly Detection: Managing Self-Purchase Risk

A creator in Kayseri opened two Pro subscriptions for her family's cafe using her own coupon and the next day saw a red flag and a suspension notice in her dashboard. That is exactly the purpose of Phase 2 anomaly detection: catch self-purchase, IP density, and rapid refund patterns early — even when intent is innocent — to keep the affiliate program credible.

Three Core Signals and Scoring

The engine watches three patterns and weights each. A total score of 80 or higher is marked critical; the threshold was tuned against affiliate-ecosystem averages and currently holds false-positive rate under 3%.

• Self-purchase: A restaurant signup whose email domain, phone, or Stripe customer ID overlaps with the affiliate (score +50).
• IP density: 3+ signups in the past 7 days from the same /24 subnet (score +25).
• Rapid refund: Cancellation or chargeback within 14 days (score +35 per refund).

Manual Review vs Auto-Suspend

Default behavior is manual review: the case appears in the super-admin queue with a red flag and the Synaltix team decides within 48 hours. If affiliate.auto_suspend_critical_anomalies is enabled, score 80+ cases are suspended automatically; this scales better but the false-positive risk is non-zero.

Most accounts are reinstated after manual review because intent is often clean, like the Kayseri case. During suspension commissions freeze and the creator sees the reason in their dashboard; the appeal flow resolves within 7 days.

The Right Creator Approach

When recommending thMenu to family or friends, do not use your coupon for an instant 5% discount; instead tell them to sign up on the Starter free tier first. QR menu and custom domain are already included; when they decide to upgrade they apply your coupon and commission flows from a real restaurant.

The side benefit: organic conversion rate climbs and the tier engine, evaluating 90-day earnings, promotes you to Silver or Gold automatically. Fabricating volume via self-purchase pays more short-term, but 12-month drip release and dormancy scans rebalance things.

FAQ

What if I use my coupon for a relative's real restaurant? Fine — as long as the domain, Stripe customer, and physical address are distinct, no flag fires. Self-purchase detection looks at email/phone hash overlap.

My account was suspended by mistake; what now? Click Open Appeal in the dashboard and upload evidence of restaurant independence (tax ID, separate bank account). Synaltix replies within 7 days.

Do we toggle auto-suspend? No — it is a platform-wide setting changed via super-admin panel and a GitHub Actions workflow. Default is OFF; manual review is preferred.

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