Fraud and bot protection
Onflow Ads runs a set of automated checks so that honest users do not have to police each other. This page describes only the parts you can see: what gets checked, what the checks can and cannot conclude, the exact messages and notifications they produce, and what you should do when one of them fires.
The thresholds, timings and signals that make abuse detection work are not published — publishing them would tell an abuser exactly how to stay under them. What is published is everything that affects an honest user: what triggers a visible action, what that action does, and how to get it undone if it was wrong.
The one principle
Automated systems propose; people decide.
An automated check can pause money, flag an order, throttle a request or apply a fixed, published penalty for a confirmed failure. It can never permanently take your money, decide a dispute, or dock your score on a guess. Anything ambiguous goes to a human reviewer with no penalty applied in the meantime — and every penalty that does land can be appealed.
The delivery monitor (paid placements)
When you buy a paid placement, an automated monitor watches the delivered post for the whole purchased window. This is the platform's answer to the oldest problem in ad placement: the post that goes up, gets screenshotted, and quietly comes down an hour later.
What it checks
| Check | What it means |
|---|---|
| The post still exists | The delivered post is still reachable in the channel it was promised in |
| The post is still pinned | For formats that promise a number of hours on top, the delivered post is the pinned message during those hours |
What it can conclude
The monitor is deliberately conservative, because flagging an honest owner costs them reliability points and holds their money.
- It flags only when Telegram is explicit that the post is gone or the channel is unreachable — for example the post was deleted, the bot was removed from the channel, the channel's posting rights were revoked, or the channel went private.
- A network problem, a rate limit or any unrecognised error is treated as inconclusive and never flags anything. The check simply runs again on the next pass.
- Only a definite unpin of the ad itself counts. A newer message pinned on top of yours does not.
What happens when it flags an order
All of this happens automatically, once per order:
- The order is marked as flagged, with the reason recorded.
- The owner takes the published −1.50 "post removed early" reliability penalty. It can only ever land once per order.
- The owner receives a notification titled "A placement was flagged automatically", naming the channel and the reason, ending with: "The payout is on hold — re-post the ad or contact support."
- The buyer receives a notification titled "A problem with one of your placements", ending with: "Your funds are still held — you can raise a concern from your campaigns."
- The payout on that order stops releasing. The money stays in escrow.
The two reasons you will actually see quoted are:
- "The post was deleted before its promised duration ran out."
- "We can no longer see the channel — the bot was removed, or the channel went private, before the placement finished."
An automated check is allowed to hold a payout. It is not allowed to take money back. Funds stay in escrow until the buyer confirms, the order completes normally, or the Onflow Ads team resolves it. That asymmetry is intentional.
Fairness rules built into the monitor
- After the window, the deal is done. Deleting the post once its paid window has fully elapsed is not under-delivery — the buyer received the entire duration they purchased, and nothing is flagged.
- Platform failures are never your fault. If a post could not go out because Telegram was down or an Onflow Ads system failed, the owner's score is untouched and the buyer is refunded or rescheduled instead.
- Unclear cases go to a person. When the cause of a delivery failure cannot be determined, no penalty is applied and the case is queued for a human reviewer. Ambiguity resolves in your favour, never against you.
- Private channels are not monitored this way. A placement has to be a public post for the monitor to verify it.
If you are an owner and think a flag is wrong
- Check the channel — if the post is genuinely still up and reachable, say so.
- Re-post the ad if it came down by accident, then contact support with the order reference.
- Once the penalty appears on your ledger, use the Appeal button on it. See Appeals and fraud concerns.
How often it checks, by plan
The monitoring interval is a plan benefit — higher plans are checked more frequently, so a problem is caught sooner. The cadence for each tier is listed in Comparing the tiers.
Automatic refunds under Verified Delivery Insurance
On plans that include Verified Delivery Insurance (Elite and above), a monitor-flagged failure refunds you automatically. You do not have to raise a dispute or argue your case.
What you see: a notification titled "Refunded automatically". It names the channel and the refunded amount, adds the service credit where one applies, and ends with the line "You didn't need to raise a dispute — your plan covers this."
Rules that come with it:
- The refund is the full remaining charge on that order, returned to your wallet.
- The additional service credit is goodwill, not earnings — it is non-withdrawable and can only be spent on the platform.
- The owner keeps the reliability penalty from the flag and forfeits their good-faith stake, but is not charged for your goodwill credit. One failure, one penalty.
- Without this plan benefit, the same flag still pauses the owner's payout and still notifies you — you just raise a concern yourself to get the money back.
Tier details are on Comparing the tiers.
The cross-promotion anti-cheat monitor
Cross-promotion swaps carry no money, so the protection is reputational rather than financial. A monitor checks that both partners' posts stay live for the agreed campaign duration.
What each side sees when a partner takes their post down early:
| Who | Notification | Content |
|---|---|---|
| The person who removed the post | "Anti-Cheat Violation Detected" | Names the CP code and the channel, states that the promotional post in that channel was removed before the campaign ended, states the reliability penalty of −1.5 points, and warns that "Repeated violations will result in a suspension from Onflow Ads" |
| Their partner | "Partner Removed Post Early" | Names the CP code and campaign, and confirms "This violation has been logged and penalised on their reliability score" |
| Their partner, if the campaign was insured | "Campaign Insurance Triggered" | Confirms compensation has been credited to their wallet, with the exact amount in the message |
The same conservative rule applies here: a probe that cannot reach the post is retried rather than treated as a deletion, so a temporary outage does not become someone's penalty.
Escrow and payment verification
- Money is held, not forwarded. On a paid placement, your payment is held while the deal is arranged and released to the owner only after the placement runs as agreed — or when you confirm it yourself from your orders page.
- Every top-up is verified with the payment provider before any wallet credit is applied, and each payment is credited exactly once. A duplicate charge is refunded in full. See the Refund Policy.
- Proof is public and verifiable. Placement proof pages let a third party — a client, a partner, an agency — verify that a placement really ran, without signing in or having an account.
- Higher plans add stronger escrow variants — retention escrow, which holds a slice of the owner's payout past delivery, and placement underwriting, which pays an upheld dispute back immediately. Both are described in Comparing the tiers.
Anti-abuse rules you should know about
These exist so honest users compete on a level field. All of them are published, because none of them can be gamed by knowing about them — they simply describe conduct that earns nothing or costs something.
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Self-dealing earns nothing | Buying your own listing awards no reliability credit to either side. This includes two accounts sharing one Telegram identity. Trust cannot be manufactured by trading with yourself. |
| Trusted is held, not farmed | Above 9.0, each clean completion is worth steadily less as your score approaches 10, so a churn of cheap deals cannot pump a permanent 10. |
| Referral abuse is penalised | Confirmed self-referral or fake-signup schemes cost −2.00 reliability and sever the abuser's referral links. |
| Chargeback fraud is penalised | A confirmed fraudulent payment reversal costs −2.00 reliability. |
| Fake audiences are banned | Inflating members, engagement or reach with bots or purchased traffic breaches the Terms of Service and can end an account. |
| Ratings are verified | A review on a paid placement can only be left by the advertiser who actually booked it, only once the booking is completed, and only once per booking. Attempting a second returns "You've already reviewed this booking." |
| False fraud concerns cost the raiser | A concern that does not stand costs you −0.50 reliability, and a repeated pattern of rejected concerns costs more. |
| AI misuse closes its own door | Misusing the AI tools is reviewed by a human, and if confirmed docks reliability — which immediately tightens that account's own AI access. |
None of the penalties above fire on suspicion. They fire on a confirmed outcome — an upheld concern, a confirmed reversal, a human-reviewed finding — and every one of them lands on your ledger where you can see it and appeal it.
Rate limits
Every action that costs the platform something — signing in, filing a concern, cancelling a booking, leaving a review, generating with AI — is rate limited. This protects your account from automated abuse and keeps the service responsive for everyone.
What you see when you hit one:
| Message | What it is | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "Too many attempts. Please wait a minute and try again." | The general-purpose short limit on ordinary actions | Wait a minute |
| "Too many attempts. Please try again in a few hours." | Sign-in protection after repeated failed attempts | Wait, or use the password reset |
| "Too many attempts. For your security this is locked for a few hours." | The same protection on the verification-code path | Wait it out |
None of these touch your reliability score or your account standing. They are traffic control, not conduct actions.
Automated-access blocking
Onflow Ads can block crawler, scraper and script traffic to protect the site and its members' data.
- If you browse with automated tooling you may receive a 403 response reading "403 — automated access to this site is disabled." API endpoints return the same refusal as "Automated access is disabled."
- Normal browsers are never affected. The block matches automated clients, not people.
- Scraping the service is against the Terms of Service.
- If you need programmatic access, there is a supported way to get it. The Boost developer API and the Subscriber Exchange developer API are key-authenticated and explicitly exempt from this blocking — they are designed to be called by scripts. Find them in your dashboard.
Moderation
- Channels are reviewed before they go live. A newly submitted or edited channel sits at Pending until it is approved, and shows Under review on its own page in the meantime. If changes are requested the status reads Needs changes and the reviewer's note appears on the channel page. Full walkthrough: Verify your channel.
- Campaigns and content may be reviewed for compliance with the acceptable-use rules.
- Moderation decisions are made by people, and a rejected channel can be edited and resubmitted.
If you think a protection got it wrong
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| A placement of yours was flagged and you believe the post was live | Re-post if it came down, then contact support with the order reference; appeal the ledger entry once it appears |
| A reliability penalty landed that you think is wrong | Use the Appeal button on that entry in Your ledger — see Appeals and fraud concerns |
| A paid placement genuinely failed you | Raise a fraud concern from your orders page — same page |
| You are blocked by a 403 while using an ordinary browser | Contact support@onflowads.com with the page you were on |
| An unauthorised charge or a suspected account compromise | Email support@onflowads.com immediately |
Frequently asked questions
Will an automated check ever take money out of my wallet?
No. Automated checks pause payouts and hold escrow. Money moves back to a buyer only through a refund path — an automatic service refund, an insurance refund on a covered plan, or a human-resolved concern.
Can the monitor flag me because Telegram had an outage?
No. Only errors that Telegram is explicit about — the post is gone, the channel is unreachable — can flag an order. Anything ambiguous is retried, and if a genuine platform failure caused a delivery miss, the buyer is refunded or rescheduled and the owner's score is untouched.
My views were lower than I expected. Is that fraud?
No, and it is not a reliability matter either. Reliability penalises non-delivery of the placement, never view variance — no owner fully controls views. Where a plan offers an underdelivery remedy, it is financial.
Does the monitor read my channel's private messages?
No. It verifies that a specific public post still exists and, where the format promises it, that it is still pinned. Nothing else in the channel is read, and Onflow Ads never messages your audience privately.
I got a "403 — automated access" page on my phone. What happened?
Almost always an in-app browser or an unusual client identifying itself in a way the filter matched. Try a normal browser, and if it persists, contact support with the page you were trying to open.
Can I be penalised twice for the same incident?
No. A monitor flag applies its penalty once per order, and the resolution of a concern applies one outcome. If you believe the same event was counted twice, appeal the second entry from your ledger.
Where do I see everything that has been applied to me?
The Your ledger section at the bottom of your reliability page — every change to your score, with a plain-language label, the date, and the score afterwards.
Next: Policies FAQ — the quickest answers across everything in this section, each one linking to the page with the full detail.