Most fake COD orders give themselves away before shipping: a number that never answers, an address that makes no sense, or a pattern of orders that no real customer would place. The cheapest way to deal with them is to hold orders that show red flags, ask the customer to confirm, and only ship what gets confirmed. This post covers the common patterns, the signals in your order data, and a simple filter you can run every day.
Confirm before you ship: COD order confirmation calls call each new COD order; the customer presses 1 to confirm or 2 to cancel, and the answer is written back to your store.
What counts as a "fake" COD order
Not every unwanted COD order is fraud. It helps to separate the types, because they need different filters:
| Type | What happens | What catches it |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong or mistyped number | Real buyer, but you can't reach them | Phone validation, confirmation call (unreachable) |
| Someone else's number | Prank, or a number entered to harass someone | Confirmation call (the person cancels) |
| Duplicate order | Customer clicked twice or ordered again | Duplicate check on phone and items |
| Impulse order | Buyer changes their mind within hours | Quick confirmation call |
| Competitor or abuse orders | Many orders to tie up stock or shipping | Pattern rules, blocklists |
| Serial refuser | Customer orders COD often and refuses often | Delivery history, prepaid-only rule |
Red flags in the order data
None of these on its own proves anything. Combinations are what matter.
Phone number
- Not a valid 10-digit Indian mobile number, or obviously fake (all same digits, sequential)
- Same number on several orders with different names or addresses
- A number that has refused deliveries before
Address
- Too short to deliver to: no house number, no street or landmark
- Random characters, repeated words, or placeholders like "test" or "abc"
- Pincode that doesn't match the city or state entered
- Many different names ordering to the same address within a short time
Order
- Quantity far above what a normal customer buys (ten of the same item on a first order)
- High order value from a brand-new customer paying COD
- Several orders in a few minutes from the same number or device
- Order placed and cancelled repeatedly
Customer history
- Previous COD orders refused at the door
- Previous orders cancelled after dispatch
- Prepaid orders never placed despite many COD orders
A daily filter that works
You don't need a fraud model to stop most of this. A simple routine run every day catches the obvious cases.
1. Automatic rules in your store or order system.
- Flag orders with invalid phone numbers or incomplete addresses.
- Flag duplicates: same phone and same items within a set number of hours.
- Flag orders above a quantity or value threshold from new customers.
- Keep a blocklist of numbers and addresses with repeated refusals.
2. Hold flagged orders. Don't cancel them automatically. Hold them out of the packing queue.
3. Confirm every COD order, flagged or not. A confirmation call settles most cases on its own:
- A real customer presses 1 and the order moves on.
- An impulse buyer or prank victim presses 2 and the order is cancelled before packing.
- A wrong number simply never confirms, and the order ends up as unreachable.
4. Decide unreachable orders by rule. For example: ship unreachable orders under a certain value, hold the rest, and cancel after a fixed time if still unconfirmed.
5. Review the flagged list once a day. A person looking at ten flagged orders a day spots patterns no rule will: the same landmark on five orders, a new pincode suddenly full of COD orders.
Where confirmation calls fit, and where they don't
A confirmation call is good at catching orders the customer doesn't stand behind: wrong numbers, pranks, duplicates and changes of mind. It is fast and needs no judgment from your team.
It doesn't catch:
- A customer who confirms and still refuses at the door
- Organised abuse using real numbers that will answer and press 1
- Problems that only appear at delivery (address unreachable, customer not home)
For those, rely on history (blocklists, prepaid-only for serial refusers) and your courier's delivery data.
Worked example (illustrative)
The figures below are round, assumed numbers to show how the filter plays out, not results from any store.
A store gets 400 COD orders in a day. Rules flag 30 (bad numbers, duplicates, odd quantities). All 400 get a confirmation call. Of the 30 flagged orders, 10 are confirmed, 8 are cancelled on the call and 12 are never reached. Of the 370 unflagged orders, most are confirmed and a handful are cancelled. The store ships the confirmed orders, cancels the cancelled ones, ships unreachable unflagged orders under its value threshold and holds the 12 unreachable flagged ones. Each cancelled order is an order that never cost shipping.
When the customer says "I never ordered this"
Some customers who answer a confirmation call genuinely didn't place the order: someone used their number by mistake or as a prank. On a keypad call they press 2, and the order is cancelled before it costs you anything.
When this happens repeatedly with the same address or account, it points to abuse rather than a typo. Add the address or account to your review rules, and if a pattern appears across several numbers, consider prepaid-only for that account or address.
If your support team gets a call back from someone who says they were called about an order they didn't place, apologise, confirm the order is cancelled, and add their number to your do-not-call list.
Using Edesy for the confirmation step
COD order confirmation calls handle step 3:
- Rules decide whether to call. By default only unconfirmed COD orders are called; you can add conditions such as a minimum amount.
- Fresh check before dialling. Orders cancelled in the meantime aren't called.
- Numbers on your do-not-call list are skipped.
- Outcomes are written back as tags, notes, status changes or cancellation, so flagged and confirmed orders are visible in the same admin your team already uses. Common labels are COD-CONFIRMED, COD-CANCELLED and COD-UNREACHABLE.
Edesy doesn't score orders for fraud. Keep red-flag rules in your store or order system, and use the confirmation outcome alongside them.
Mistakes to avoid
- Cancelling on a single weak signal. A short address may just be a small town.
- Blocking whole pincodes. It punishes every honest buyer there.
- Shipping first, confirming later. Once it's with the courier, the cost is already spent.
- Not recording outcomes. Tag every order with its confirmation result, so your history gets better every month. See order tags for COD workflows.
Next step
Set up a confirmation step on every COD order, and keep a short list of rules for the obvious red flags. Start with COD order confirmation calls.