As transaction volumes grow, fraud prevention strategies play an increasingly important role in payment performance. In large-scale payment operations, automation is essential — but protecting revenue also requires precision.
A fully automated fraud prevention system may successfully block fraudulent transactions, but it often blocks loyal customers and legitimate high-value purchases as well.
This is what’s known as a “black box” approach: rigid rules, limited visibility, and little room for fine-tuning. The result can be lost revenue, damage to brand reputation, and declining customer loyalty.
That’s why more enterprise merchants are moving toward solutions that combine advanced technology with human expertise.
In this post, we’ll explore how combining the speed of AI with human-led calibration creates a smarter, more effective approach to fraud prevention.
Why Calibration Is Essential for Effective Fraud Prevention AI
Artificial intelligence is essential for handling the transaction volume of large-scale online payment operations. By learning from millions of transactions, AI can identify suspicious behavior in real time and apply rules with speed and consistency — something that would be impossible to achieve manually at scale.
PagShield®, PagBrasil’s fraud prevention solution, is a clear example of this approach. The technology analyzes customer purchasing behavior by evaluating multiple risk indicators, including:
- Browsing patterns
- Device fingerprinting (a unique identifier generated from the technical characteristics of the device used)
- IP-based geolocation
- Network and relationship analysis (such as the same card being used across multiple accounts)
- Proxy detection
- Velocity checks
Based on these data, the algorithm automatically detects atypical behavior across e-commerce transactions, accelerating and improving fraud detection efficiency.
PagShield® can be implemented quickly and integrated seamlessly into existing payment flows via API. However, its performance is maximized when the system is manually calibrated to reflect the specific realities of each business.
This doesn’t mean the fraud detection process becomes slower or more bureaucratic. On the contrary: It remains fully automated but is configured to ensure the sales flow isn’t disrupted by poorly adjusted rules that don’t align with a merchant’s business model or vertical.
After all, even the most advanced fraud-prevention AI models rely on generalized patterns — and without proper calibration, they can misclassify legitimate edge cases that are perfectly normal for your operation.
What Goes Into Calibrating a Fraud Prevention System
PagBrasil’s team of risk and fraud specialists plays a key role in this calibration process, fine-tuning the system by interpreting data in the context of each merchant’s real operating environment.
This includes evaluating criteria that directly influence risk logic and approval decisions, such as:
- Regional purchasing behavior: Different regions often exhibit distinct patterns in average order value, purchase times, shipping methods, and payment preferences — requiring nuanced risk interpretation.
- Average ticket variation during campaigns: Promotional periods and product launches typically drive higher order values, which, without proper calibration, can be misinterpreted as increased risk.
- Seasonality: Every business has its own demand cycles. Understanding these peaks and valleys helps prevent unnecessary blocks during high-volume periods.
- Vertical-specific behavior: Industries such as cosmetics, electronics, or fashion show very different buying patterns. These nuances must be factored in for fraud analysis to remain accurate and effective.
Accounting for these variables — often difficult for a newly deployed AI model to recognize on its own — is essential to reducing false positives in atypical but legitimate transactions.
Next, we’ll take a closer look at PagShield®’s key differentiators and explore the configuration and calibration options that make this fraud prevention approach both flexible and scalable.
Why Choose PagShield® for Fraud Prevention
As we have established, high-volume payment operations require far more than a traditional fraud prevention system.
PagShield® stands out by combining deep customization with a hybrid intelligence approach — without compromising processing speed or operational efficiency.
Below, we highlight the key factors that make PagShield® a comprehensive fraud prevention solution for enterprise-scale businesses.
The Best of Both Worlds: AI Powered by Human Expertise
PagShield® combines machine learning algorithms with the direct involvement of fraud prevention specialists.
This hybrid approach allows the system to automatically approve the vast majority of transactions with speed and high accuracy, while enabling expert teams to step in on particularly complex cases and continuously refine PagShield®’s rules and logic.
By combining automation with human oversight, PagShield® prevents legitimate transactions, especially high-value purchases or atypical but valid behavior, from being blocked by overly conservative automated decisions.
This balance is essential for protecting payment operations without sacrificing valuable conversions.
Human Review of Complex Fraud Cases
As mentioned above, in highly complex cases, PagShield® applies a hybrid approach, which includes a pre-authorization stage. With more generic, inflexible fraud prevention solutions, transactions like these would typically be automatically declined.
With PagShield®, however, these cases are flagged as requiring additional evaluation, since many of them are entirely legitimate. The transactions are then reviewed by PagBrasil’s specialized team, which applies a precise, context-driven analysis — evaluating each one in light of the merchant’s specific business model and risk profile.
This human review layer is critical to unlocking legitimate sales that closed, rule-based systems would likely block, helping maximize revenue while reducing friction and frustration for end customers.
Customer List–Based Customization
When implementing PagShield® in your payment operations, you don’t start from scratch.
From day one, it’s possible—and recommended—to import trusted customer lists (allowlists/VIPs) as well as blocklists, built from your own transaction history.
These lists act as a fast track to system accuracy.
Instead of forcing the fraud prevention engine to learn everything from zero, PagShield® starts with a set of data already validated by the merchant. This is especially valuable for businesses with a mature sales operation and a robust transaction history.
An allowlist of trusted customers typically includes:
- VIP or repeat customers with a strong payment history
- Corporate buyers with high purchase frequency and predictable behavior
- Users who have undergone manual review and been confirmed as legitimate
A blocklist, on the other hand, may include:
- Email addresses, devices, or IPs linked to previous fraud attempts
- Cards associated with chargebacks or failed authorization attempts
These lists are continuously updated based on new transaction data, ensuring PagShield® remains aligned with the evolving realities of your business. The practical result is an immediate reduction in false positives, higher approval rates, and a smoother payment experience for legitimate customers.
In short, much of the groundwork is already done before the first transaction runs through the fraud prevention system.
The Impact of Human Calibration on Fraud Prevention Results
The integration of advanced technology with active human intelligence delivers direct, measurable results for high-volume payment operations.
Below are the key benefits PagShield® delivers in practice:
Protection for Trusted Customers
By leveraging allowlists, loyal customers and VIP buyers are not penalized for natural variations in purchasing behavior. This preserves the customer experience and prevents unnecessary friction that could otherwise harm long-term relationships.
Increased Approval Rates for Legitimate Sales
Human involvement in reviewing high-value, held transactions ensures that important sales aren’t lost to automated decisions that fail to account for business-specific context.
Lower False Positives and Fewer Chargebacks
Continuous system calibration, combined with more advanced pattern analysis — such as device fingerprinting and network (social graph) analysis — significantly reduces false blocks while also lowering the risk of future chargebacks.
Dynamic Adjustments Based on Business Seasonality
Promotions, product launches, and key commercial dates can be proactively incorporated into fraud prevention logic, ensuring the system stays aligned with the real-time dynamics of the business.
Operational Efficiency for Risk and Payments Teams
With PagBrasil managing the fraud intelligence layer, your team no longer needs to spend hours manually reviewing transactions and can focus on more strategic initiatives, such as marketing, expansion, and customer experience.
Fraud Prevention as a Conversion Partner
For online businesses operating at scale, relying on a fully manual risk analysis and fraud detection process is simply not feasible. At the same time, a challenge emerges when automated solutions become overly rigid — blocking legitimate transactions and generating false positives that directly impact conversion.
But does fraud prevention always have to be a zero-sum game? Is it really a choice between tighter controls or higher conversion rates?
The answer, fortunately, is no. By combining algorithmic intelligence with expert human calibration, it’s possible to protect revenue without sacrificing growth. With PagShield®, PagBrasil delivers a solution that goes beyond technology alone.
You benefit from a state-of-the-art, fully automated fraud prevention system, backed by a team that actively interprets data, fine-tunes rules, and continuously monitors your operation.
The result is smarter decision-making, higher approval rates for legitimate transactions, and reduced exposure to financial losses. Most importantly, you gain efficiency without giving up control, and your internal teams can focus on what truly drives the business forward.
That’s why PagShield® positions itself as a living, strategic solution — constantly evolving to stay aligned with the realities of your e-commerce operation.
Looking to strengthen your fraud prevention with technology tailored to your business and expert support? Talk to PagBrasil.
