Question 1

How do I install CustomerGenius in my Shopify store?

Accepted Answer

Click Install app in the Shopify App Store and approve the requested permissions. Our onboarding wizard opens automatically inside Shopify Admin, guiding you through setting your fraud detection thresholds and running a one-time data sync across your last 60 days of orders. Most merchants are fully configured in under 10 minutes.

Question 2

Does CustomerGenius start refunding orders the moment I install it?

Accepted Answer

No — auto-refund is disabled by default, so you're always in control. During onboarding you set the fraud score threshold at which orders are flagged. You can choose to manually review flagged orders for a period to build confidence in the scoring, or enable automatic refunds right away. Either way, you'll receive an email notification each time a suspicious order is detected.

Question 3

What signals feed the fraud score?

Accepted Answer

CustomerGenius checks every new order against all previous orders that used the same discount code. It compares email addresses, phone numbers, billing addresses, shipping addresses (both exact and fuzzy matching), and customer names. Each field that matches a prior order adds points to the fraud score. Fuzzy matching catches small variations like transposed letters or different address formats that a simple exact match would miss.

Question 4

Can CustomerGenius detect abuse across a family of similar codes (e.g. SAVE10, SAVE20, SAVE30)?

Accepted Answer

Yes — this is what cross-evaluation discount groups solve. Add codes to the monitored list individually, or use a wildcard like SAVE* to group an entire family of codes into a single eligibility pool. CustomerGenius then scores incoming orders using any code in the group against prior orders using any other code in the group. It's the right setting when customers rotate through different codes from the same campaign to dodge per-code limits.

Question 5

Does CustomerGenius work with order tags as well as discount codes?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Some promotions don't flow through a discount code — gift-with-purchase, BFCM offers tagged at the order level, influencer flags, and so on. Add the tag to the monitored list in settings and CustomerGenius applies the same identity-based abuse detection it uses for discount codes. Wildcard prefixes work for tags too, so you can group whole families of campaign tags together.

Question 6

Can different discount codes have different fraud thresholds or actions?

Accepted Answer

Yes — custom automation rules let you set per-code (or per-tag) fraud-score thresholds and choose whether to refund, place the order on fulfillment hold, or take no automatic action. Rules are matched in priority order, so you can override the default behavior for high-value or sensitive codes without changing how everything else is treated. If no custom rule matches, the default threshold from your settings applies.

Question 7

Can the app observe abuse for a while before refunding automatically?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every automation rule has an occurrence setting from 2 to 10. Occurrence 2 means act the second time an identity hits the rule; occurrence 3 means wait until the third; and so on, up to 10. Many merchants start at 3 or 4 to confirm patterns are real before going aggressive, then tighten the threshold once they trust the matches. It's the safest way to roll out auto-refunds on a new code.

Question 8

Can I adjust how much weight each signal carries in the fraud score?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In the Fraud Score Rules tab you can tune the points awarded for each signal — exact shipping address, billing address, fuzzy address, phone, email, full name, first name, last name — and the threshold at which a customer is considered suspicious. The defaults work well for most stores; adjust only if you're seeing too many false positives or want stricter scoring on a specific signal.

Question 9

What exactly happens when an order is refunded?

Accepted Answer

CustomerGenius issues a full refund through the Shopify API and optionally sends an automated email to you and the customer explaining the cancellation. If you have Recharge connected, any associated subscription is cancelled there as well. If you use ShipStation, the order is cancelled before it ships. All refund activity is logged in your CustomerGenius dashboard for monthly reporting.

Question 10

Can I run a discount that's used once on my online store but applies on every subscription renewal?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Enable the Skip recurring subscription orders toggle in settings and renewal orders from Recharge and other supported subscription apps are excluded from fraud evaluation entirely. That means a discount code intended to be used only once on online store orders can keep auto-applying on every recurring renewal without each renewal triggering a duplicate-use refund — fraud checks run on the original online order, not on the renewals. As a side benefit, your existing subscribers also never get flagged for placing legitimate repeat orders that share the same address, email, or phone.

Question 11

Can I block specific customers from ordering at all, regardless of discount use?

Accepted Answer

Yes — this is a separate feature from discount monitoring. The block list is for customers you've decided not to serve, like repeat chargeback filers or people who've abused your support team. Add a tag to a customer in Shopify and CustomerGenius will refund any future order from anyone matching their identity — even if they sign up with a new email, phone, or address. The block follows the person, not just the email.

Question 12

Will CustomerGenius slow down my checkout?

Accepted Answer

No — CustomerGenius has zero impact on checkout speed. All fraud detection happens post-checkout via Shopify's order webhooks. Your storefront, cart, and payment flow are completely unaffected. Customers experience no difference at checkout regardless of whether their order is later flagged.

Question 13

Is there a free trial for CustomerGenius?

Accepted Answer

Yes. All three pricing tiers include a 14-day free trial with full access to every feature — no credit card required to start. There is no permanent free tier, but the trial period is designed to give you enough data to see exactly how much discount fraud exists in your store and whether the subscription pays for itself (on average, merchants save 11x their monthly cost in recovered discounts).

Question 14

What happens to customers who are caught abusing discounts?

Accepted Answer

Their order is refunded and they receive an optional notification email. Interestingly, based on aggregate data from CustomerGenius merchants, 38% of customers who are caught repurchase at full price — meaning catching fraud often converts an abusive customer into a profitable one.

Question 15

How do I get help if something looks wrong?

Accepted Answer

Email our support team directly at support@customergenius.io. We're run by Shopify merchants ourselves and respond quickly to questions about fraud scoring, threshold tuning, or integration issues.

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