Affiliate fraud is rarely dramatic. It usually looks like traffic that converts suspiciously well, orders that are refunded a week later, or one partner whose numbers do not match anyone else's. This guide covers what you can see, what you can switch off, and what to do when you are sure.
In this article we will go over:
Review commissions before they count
This is the single most useful setting for a program that is worried about fraud.
Switch off automatic approval of commissions in your program. Every new conversion then arrives as Pending and adds nothing to the affiliate's balance.
Review pending commissions under Commissions and set anything suspicious to Disapproved. A pending commission you disapprove never reaches the affiliate's balance.
Unless your program is on Tapfiliate Pay, you can change the status again later if you were wrong.
💡 Refunds are not sent to Tapfiliate automatically unless your integration does it. If you track sales with the JavaScript snippet or a setup with no direct connection back to your payment platform, a refunded order stays as a commission until you disapprove it by hand, or until a developer automates it through the REST API.
What you can see about a conversion
On the Conversions page, click a conversion to open its side panel. It shows the affiliate, the referrer, the landing page, and the platform, operating system and browser of the click. Patterns in those fields are usually what gives a bad partner away – the same device fingerprint across unrelated buyers, a referrer that says paid traffic when the affiliate said they only post organically, or traffic with no referrer at all.
The Tapfiliate MCP server can help you look across the whole account rather than one conversion at a time. It needs Admin-level access and API/Zapier access, and it is read-only: it flags affiliates for you to review, it does not disapprove or block anything. Breakdowns by referrer or landing page are available on the Enterprise plan only.
What can and cannot be blocked
⚠️ There is no way to block specific customer email addresses or disposable email domains. That is true both in your own settings and for anything our team can set up for you. If you want to keep those orders out of your program entirely, filter them on your side before the conversion is sent to Tapfiliate – a conversion only exists because your site created it.
If you are seeing a pattern you would like us to look at, write to support@tapfiliate.com with examples and we will tell you what is possible for your account. The most reliable controls, though, are the ones in your own hands: reviewing commissions before they are approved, and filtering unwanted orders before they reach us.
What to do about a fraudulent affiliate
Order matters here, and one step is easy to forget until it is too late.
Export first. From the Customers and Conversions pages, filter by that affiliate and export both lists. After the affiliate is disapproved, their customers and orders are no longer filterable by affiliate, so anything you did not export becomes much harder to review.
Disapprove the commissions. Review the sales first, then set them to Disapproved so they never reach the balance.
Cancel the customers associated with that affiliate.
Disapprove the affiliate for the program. They are not deleted – they move to Archived affiliates and can be approved again later if you change your mind.
Keep an eye on the program for a few days afterwards and tell us if anything still looks wrong.
Reducing the risk up front
Write your terms and enforce them. Say which traffic sources are allowed, and tell affiliates when the terms change.
Screen applicants. Collect the company, address and website at sign-up using custom onboarding fields, and approve manually rather than automatically.
Watch the patterns, not the totals. A sudden jump in conversion rate for one partner is more informative than their volume.
Talk to your affiliates. Regular check-ins surface misunderstandings before they become disputes.
FAQ
❓Can you delete a fraudulent affiliate's customer data?
Cancelling customers and disapproving commissions changes their status, which is not the same as deleting the records. If you need data genuinely erased, say so explicitly when you write to us and we will tell you what is possible.
❓What about affiliates buying through their own link?
Self-referrals can be detected by comparing attributes such as the external ID and the customer ID against the affiliate's own details. You then decide whether to approve or reject the commission.
Still need help?
If you have any questions or if something in this guide is unclear, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@tapfiliate.com – we're happy to assist!