Overview
Bad actors or bots may attempt to exploit your loyalty program by creating multiple fake accounts to farm points or rewards through easy actions (like claiming birthday points or following social media accounts).
The most effective way to stop this abuse is to implement a "Verified Buyer" strategy. By restricting your easy-to-complete earning rules so that they are only available to customers who have made at least one legitimate purchase, you can completely neutralize fake accounts.
Step 1: Automate the Verified Buyer tag
To make this work, your store needs to automatically tag customers as soon as they make a real purchase. You can do this using either the Growave VIP Tiers program or Shopify Flow.
Option A: Using Growave VIP Tiers
Navigate to Growave admin → Rewards → VIP Tiers.
Create an entry-level tier.
Set the milestone requirement to Orders placed = 1.
In that tier's settings, enable the option Add tag to members of this tier and enter a unique tag (e.g., verified_buyer).
⚠️ Important
The milestone type is locked after the first tier is created. If you already have an active VIP tier system utilizing a different milestone (like Points earned or Amount spent), you will either need to rebuild the tier system or use the Shopify Flow option below.
Option B: Using Shopify Flow
Install the Shopify Flow app in your Shopify admin.
Create a new workflow triggered by Order paid (This ensures you only tag actual paying customers, not abandoned checkouts).
Add the action Add customer tags and enter your chosen tag (e.g., verified_buyer).
✅ Tip
To ensure your past customers are included in this strategy, navigate to your Shopify admin Customers list. Use the filter Number of orders > 0, select all matching customers, and bulk-add the verified_buyer tag.
Step 2: Restrict easy-to-complete Ways to earn rules
Once your tagging system is running, you can lock down your earning rules. We recommend doing this for the Celebrate birthday rule and any Follow on... or Share on... social rules.
Navigate to Rewards → Points → Ways to earn.
Click into the easy-to-complete earning rule.
Scroll down to the setting Available exclusively for customers with listed tags.
Enter the verified_buyer tag and click Save.
Now, if a bot or fraudster creates a new account to farm points or rewards, they will be blocked from these rewards because they do not have the required tag from a legitimate purchase.
⚠️ Important
Do not apply this tag restriction to the Sign up earning rule (as customers naturally complete that action before making their first purchase), or to transactional rules like Place order, Spend X to get Y, or Buy X to get Y. If you restrict transactional rules, customers will not earn any points or rewards on their very first purchase!
If you have any questions or need assistance, contact us at [email protected] or use the chat icon in the bottom-right corner of the Growave admin panel. We're here to help! 🤗