How to shortlist fraud software before you talk to vendors

A useful shortlist starts from a decision your team already has to make: approve a payment, step up an account, review a seller, or escalate a case. The software category comes after that decision. A vendor homepage is not a shortlist.

Write the decision down

Name the event, the person who owns the outcome, and what a wrong decision costs in operational time. If two products answer different events, they are not substitutes, even when both use the word fraud.

Ask for evidence you can audit

• Which official document describes the current product scope?
• What data leaves your environment, and under which contract?
• How are false positives reviewed by a person?
• What can your team export for audit, dispute, or regulator questions?
• Which claims are marketing, and which are in the order form?

Keep identity and fraud decisions separate until the scope is clear

Some products touch account opening, device signals, or identity proofing. Those are different control problems from a payment decline. NIST’s digital identity guidelines are a reference for identity assurance language. They are not a scorecard for fraud vendors, and this draft does not treat them as one.

What this guide will not do

CriminalEconomy does not rank vendors, invent detection rates, or copy a vendor’s marketing metrics. A directory listing on this site is unaffiliated until a written agreement says otherwise, and even then the page must say so.