Protecting Against Fraud Without Sacrificing Privacy

For OLX, keeping its marketplace safe by detecting and blocking fraudulent activity in real time is a top priority — it’s how the platform protects both sellers and buyers while maintaining trust. The real challenge, however, was finding a way to strengthen these defenses without adding friction to the user journey or collecting excessive data. To achieve that balance of intelligence and precision, OLX turned to a trusted partner: SHIELD.

Fraud’s Many Faces

Fake accounts are the gateway to nearly every attack on large marketplaces like OLX. Fraudsters deploy bots, emulators, app cloners, and anti-fingerprinting tools to mass-produce fake identities and infiltrate platforms undetected.

Once inside, they can launch different types of fraud at scale:

• Collusion Syndicates – organized groups of fraudsters coordinating fake buyer and seller accounts to manipulate trust signals, inflate credibility, and exploit the marketplace. Existing solutions, built to flag suspicious accounts in isolation, fail to uncover these coordinated operations.
  
  
• Fake Listings – Fraudsters posted attractive but fraudulent ads for cars, rentals, or electronics, requesting deposits or upfront payments before disappearing.
  
  
• Fake Reviews – To boost the credibility of their fraudulent ads, fraudsters used networks of fake accounts to flood listings with positive reviews and ratings, misleading genuine buyers.
  
  
• Fake Buyers – Using fake accounts, fraudsters posed as legitimate buyers, sending forged payment confirmations to trick sellers into shipping goods with no real transaction behind them.
  
  
• Account Takeovers (ATOs) – With stolen credentials, fraudsters hijacked genuine accounts that already had strong reputations. These compromised accounts were then used to post scams that appeared far more convincing than new fake accounts.

By operating at scale and repeatedly infiltrating the platform, fraudsters erode user trust and place OLX’s marketplace integrity at risk.

The End of Fraud’s Free Trial

To overcome these challenges, OLX partnered with SHIELD, the world’s leading device-first fraud intelligence platform. Unlike legacy tools, SHIELD stops fraud where it actually originates, at the device level, without requiring sensitive identity data.

SHIELD Device ID: The global standard for device identification with over 99.99% accuracy. It persistently recognizes devices even after resets, cloning, or spoofing, enabling OLX to detect when multiple accounts are controlled from the same device and shut down fraud rings instantly.

Fraud Intelligence: Real-time, actionable signals continuously profile every device session to detect malicious tools such as bots and emulators. Fraudsters are silently blocked in the background, ensuring a seamless and frictionless experience for genuine users.

Privacy by Design: By eliminating reliance on location data and sensitive identity details, SHIELD ensures OLX remains fully compliant with global data privacy laws while protecting user trust.

A Trusted Marketplace: A Win-Win for OLX and Its Users

With SHIELD fully embedded, OLX has transformed its fraud prevention framework and delivered measurable business returns:

• 10x more accurate fraud detection, reducing false positives and protecting user experience
• 99.8% of fake accounts blocked instantly, eliminating fraud rings at scale
• 100% compliance with privacy regulations, fraud prevention without collecting sensitive identity data
• Significant ROI, driven by reduced fraud losses, lower operational overhead, and higher transaction confidence

It’s a true win-win. Users can trust OLX to provide a safe and reliable platform, and OLX can trust the authenticity of its users. By cutting fraud costs, streamlining operations, and safeguarding privacy, OLX proves that fraud prevention is not just a cost of doing business, but a strategic driver of sustainable growth, efficiency, and lasting trust.

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