DealStream Overcomes SMS Toll Fraud with DataDome

The Problem: SMS Toll Fraud Threatening Operational Integrity

DealStream faced a major challenge when toll fraud incidents began affecting its SMS verification system. Over several weeks, fraudulent bots infiltrated the platform, creating fake accounts and leveraging premium phone numbers for high-cost verification SMS messages and calls.

“We figured out that bots were spamming our SMS verification system so that, when we sent a message or called to check their identity, as we do with all new customers, it was costing us a lot,” Sean explains. He estimates that 20,000 to 30,000 SMS messages were sent to these premium-rate numbers.

This not only led to considerable financial losses but also strained the platform’s resources. Custom code attempts to thwart these attacks proved unsuccessful, so DealStream tried to limit the number of verification attempts for each member.

“After 10 attempts, we deactivated them. But this only exacerbated the problem, as the fraudsters started creating even more memberships. All these fake customers skewed our statistics and really overwhelmed our safety officer, who reviews all memberships individually,” Sean remembers.

A robust solution was urgently needed to preserve DealStream’s operational integrity.

The Solution: Easy-to-Implement, Search-Engine-Friendly Bot Protection

In response to this critical situation, DealStream sought a third-party solution specializing in toll fraud prevention and evaluated multiple providers.

“DataDome came out on top, as we were impressed by the dashboard and the sophisticated artificial intelligence,” Sean says.

DealStream’s CTO and his team were somewhat concerned that implementing a security solution might inadvertently block legitimate search engine bots such as Google and Bing, as the company’s visibility and traffic depend heavily on search engine placement. This highlighted the importance of a nuanced security solution like DataDome, which can distinguish between malicious bots and legitimate search engine activity to ensure the platform’s continued online visibility.

“We were super impressed to see how the ‘good guys’ got through and the ‘bad guys’ were blocked!” Sean notes.

The Results: Reliable Metrics and Tranquility

Implementing DataDome has proved transformative for DealStream. The comprehensive dashboard provides real-time insights into traffic patterns, allowing the team to visualize and understand the origin and nature of requests.

“During the first couple of weeks, I logged on every day and watched, a little bit aghast, how many bad bots were scraping our content!” says Sean.

With the ability to create custom rules and the assurance that legitimate traffic remains unaffected, the company regained control over its system. All this with great simplicity and peace of mind: “The solution is very easy to implement, and it is nice not to have to think about toll fraud anymore.”

The seamless integration with the Amazon CloudFront module added an extra layer of efficiency to DealStream’s security infrastructure. By using the CloudFront distribution for their website, DealStream ensured a streamlined and optimized connection with DataDome’s advanced security features, enhancing the platform’s ability to adapt to evolving threats.

Beyond the significant tangible cost savings, the collaboration with DataDome has greatly contributed to restoring confidence in DealStream’s data and traffic statistics, ensuring the accuracy of its recommendation engine and statistical charts.

“One of the main benefits we offer our customers is statistics: the number of times their items are viewed, the reliability of a seller or buyer, and so on. So, if all this information is being distorted by fake users, that’s not good. Regaining that trust in our data was very important to us,” Sean concludes.