
How Bolt does fraud detection better - rbres
https://blog.bolt.com/better-fraud-detection-with-bolt/
======
redorb
Pricing page: "No more games. Save real money with bolt's simple pricing"

Then they go on to not include any ideas of price.

When companies can't give me a price range or idea I always have a feeling
that their pricing model is to guess my profits and then guess how much they
can take and still gain my business. Usually you can identify these types of
propositions when the company tells you they're your 'partner' and you're not
just a customer - but a partner.

Just tell me up to $x in sales it's $y per transaction and $y can have
different prices for different features... I don't want a 2 hour call or
screen cast to find out it's out of budget. This sales funnel tactic is no
more moral than the long form copy sales website.. where they get people to
spend 2 hours reading something - then at the end hit them for some amazing
offer - where the user feels they've already invested 2 hours 'learning how to
x' why not spend $95 and some reaaccuring fee for ever... dark pattern.

~~~
rbres
Thanks for the feedback here. Very much acknowledged. We're going to be
revamping the pricing page.

Typically our deals are more enterprise-y / custom, especially since we're
taking on all fraud liability. It's not just a processing rate.

Feel free to send me your volume and website and I'll get you back a quote: rb
[at] bolt.com.

And the pricing page will be updated soon. Appreciate it, again.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> enterprise-y / custom

> send me your ....

> I'll get you back a quote

Thanks, but nah. I don't want to call or email or negotiate, I just want to
give you my money and get the service, so I'll be using your competitor who
has actual pricing and plan comparison front-and-center on their website.

...or are you just a quote bot and unable to actually read comments? It
certainly doesn't appear that you understood the parent's comment.

~~~
meowface
He pretty much confirmed the parent's point.

>I always have a feeling that their pricing model is to guess my profits and
then guess how much they can take and still gain my business.

"Enterprise-y" pricing is codeword for "smooth-talk non-technical managers at
huge corporations and bilk them for as much as they're conceivably willing to
pay". That's how the enterprise sales model works, and it can be very
effective.

It's not always a bad thing, but it does seem irritating that their only
pricing option is enterprise pricing.

~~~
rbres
Sorry guys. Something we need to work on: instant and clearer pricing for
everyone.

Don't have much else to add at this point :/ We're new, growing, and getting
better. That involves taking feedback like this seriously. Will deliver
through our actions in the near future instead of words.

~~~
meowface
Good to hear you're receptive to feedback. Enterprise sales and pricing is how
a lot of companies have become, and stayed, big. There's nothing inherently
wrong with that model.

But if enterprise pricing is the _only_ model you're offering, then unless
your goal is to only ever get business from big corporations (which, again,
isn't necessarily a bad thing), you're going to turn a lot of potential
customers away.

------
nothrabannosir
(Disclosure: ex-Ravelin employee, a competitor)

What are your false positive and false negative rates (if I may ask)? I see
you allude to the importance of those metrics somewhere in the post, but I
don’t see the comparison with yourselves.

Crucially, if you’re taking on responsibility for fraud (i.e. false
negatives), you’ll be heavily incentivised to skew your model towards low
false negatives. Unfortunately, because of the very nature of algorithmic
fraud detection, these are inversely linked to false positives. Less fraud <=>
more genuine customers bounced, and vice versa. By taking a side in that bet,
your priorities may not be aligned with those of the customer (esp high margin
merchants are totally fine with some fraud). Is there something you do to
counteract that?

This is something I always wondered about when I saw other companies with this
business model.

Nice post though, and amen to the “we detect fraud!” - “how?” - “uhhhhh…”
comic :)

~~~
rbres
Thanks for the question, nothrabannosir! Very key points here, so want to
answer it in-depth.

Half a dozen points to answer this question:

\- First off, our #1 north star metrics are order approval rates and minimal
false positives. We measure this for every merchant. Clients sign up with us
under the clear expectation that they'll see a spike in order approval rates
and all of our case studies (compared to tools like Signifyd, Riskified,
Stripe Radar, and many others) have shown significant spikes in order approval
rates.

\- We have some of our case studies published here [https://bolt.com/case-
studies](https://bolt.com/case-studies) and will be posting more in short
order.

\- We are more incentivized than siloed fraud detection providers to approve
more orders. Payment processors are aligned to maximize volume. Fraud
providers are aligned to minimize fraud. We play both roles. We want maximum
volume through our pipes just as badly as merchants do.

\- Furthermore, fraud rates are simply FRAUD / TOTAL VOLUME. We always aim to
maximize TOTAL VOLUME to keep fraud rates low vs squeezing the numerator
(which is what most companies do).

\- Finally, as elaborated in the most, we have unparalleled data visibility by
powering checkout. We use no rules. So, just because something looks bad (e.g.
a user using a VPN, coming from a certain country, etc) our models just factor
that in as one of hundreds of variables.

\- We try to not profit and maximize fraud for the first several months to
root out false positives in our models. If you only approve things that are
clearly good and reject all else, your models will never learn.

\- Our human review team rigorously processes every machine decline before
it's officially declined to once again maximize order approvals.

A lot more that I could elaborate on here. But, just a few quick tidbits on
what we do to minimize false positives as our #1 priority. All of the above
and more lends itself to, what we believe to be, the best results in the
industry.

~~~
rbres
Furthermore, all of our clients have a "Force Approve" button where they take
liability. The usage of that is approximately 0 because of how much clients
end up trusting us. We want usage to be 0. But, they do have final say if
needed.

------
CaveTech
The product looks interesting but the hand picked examples are literally
useless. 3 examples where you approved a transaction that a competitor opted
to decline. Based on your examples your model could literally be "approve
every transaction".

It's not a fair comparison unless you compare approval/decline rates and total
fraud per platform.

~~~
rbres
Yep, totally get it. We wanted to show specific examples, but obviously not
disclose PII. So, this was a middle-ground although not idea.

For every client we measure order approval and decline rates before/after.
Here are several case studies with those results: [https://bolt.com/case-
studies](https://bolt.com/case-studies)

And we have more that we can send over if you're interested in learning more!
rb [at] bolt.com.

------
osrec
Having looked at their website, I'm unclear as to whether bolt is a payment
processor like Stripe or whether it's just optimising checkouts. Does anyone
here use them currently?

~~~
rbres
Bolt is a full-stack solution. We do 1) end-to-end payment processing (like
Stripe), 2) optimizing checkout, and 3) white glove fraud detection where we
take on full fraud liability.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Okay, do you guys have something that allows me to charge ACH / Credit Card on
an ongoing basis (daily) for different amounts? Something like a reusable
token like Synapse?

I'm looking for something like this but Stripe just isn't cutting it :(

~~~
rbres
We can likely do this for you with credit card depending on the details. We'll
be rolling out ACH in upcoming months (but ACH is not immediately usable).

Email me directly and I'll send over details? rb [at] bolt.com.

------
rbres
Also FYI, CEO of Bolt here. Ask me anything!

~~~
benackles
Why is your site not secure? Let's Encrypt makes this easy.

~~~
Operyl
Both the blog and the homepage are served over TLS for me. And they’re forcing
plaintext to TLS ... so not sure what’s wrong on your end.

~~~
rbres
Fixed it, thanks!

------
_jayhack_
Looks dope!

