# Refund abuse prevention

Use refund abuse signals to detect and prevent serial refund abuse patterns.

Refund abuse happens when customers request refunds for goods or services they’ve already received and plan to keep.

A customer might:

- Falsely claim a product wasn’t delivered or was defective
- Request a refund after fully consuming a digital good or service
- Repeatedly request refunds across multiple transactions on the same card or account

Radar assesses the likelihood that a payment is from a serial refund abuser.

## How the refund abuse risk level works

Radar assigns a refund abuse risk level (`refund_abuse_risk_level`) to each payment, based on the customer’s refund behavior across Stripe. Possible values are `normal`, `elevated`, and `highest`.

The risk level reflects the likelihood that a payment will result in a refund policy violation, or that a refund is from a customer violating your policies. It doesn’t reflect the likelihood that the payment is fraudulent or the customer is malicious. Use the refund abuse risk level to enforce your refund abuse policies, not as a standalone fraud signal.

## Block or review payments using the refund abuse risk level

Use the refund abuse risk level (`refund_abuse_risk_level`) to enforce your refund abuse policies. For example, you can prevent serial refunders from making purchases they’re likely to return.

You can:

- Query `refund_abuse_risk_level` from the `radar_abuse_prevention_attributes` table in [Stripe Sigma](https://stripe.com/sigma)
- Write custom rules for `:refund_abuse_risk_level:` to act on payments that match `'normal'`, `'elevated'`, or `'highest'`. For example, block if `:refund_abuse_risk_level: = 'highest'`, or send to manual review if `:refund_abuse_risk_level: = 'elevated'`).