Fake COD orders: stop paying to ship parcels nobody will accept
A fake order costs nothing to place and a lot to fulfil. Under cash on delivery the store pays freight out, freight back and packaging — and collects nothing. The cheapest place to stop one is before it is booked.
In short
- Most "fake" orders are not fraud — they are impulse orders, prank orders and duplicates, and they behave the same way: refused at the door.
- Each one costs forward freight, return freight and packaging, with no sale.
- Four checks catch most of them before dispatch: confirm the order, check the customer's history, check the address, and watch for suspicious order patterns.
Where fake COD orders come from
- Impulse orders — placed late at night from an ad, forgotten by morning.
- Serial refusers — the same person ordering again and again under slightly different names, refusing each time.
- Duplicates — the same order placed twice because checkout seemed slow.
- Pranks and competitors — rarer, but they come in bursts.
They all end the same way: a parcel that goes out, comes back, and costs you twice. Across the stores we measure, 27.5% of COD parcels were returned — not all of them fake, but every one of them paid for.
What one fake order really costs
Stock is also tied up for the one to two weeks the parcel is on the road. See what a returned parcel really costs for the full arithmetic.
Four checks that stop them before dispatch
1. Confirm the order on WhatsApp
A real customer answers "yes" in seconds. A fake order goes unanswered or gets a "no". Ask before you book, and you pay nothing for the orders that were never going to land. Kaarobar sends the confirmation automatically: yes tags the order for dispatch, no cancels and restocks it.
2. Check the customer's history
Serial refusers use a new name each time but rarely a new phone number or address. Kaarobar matches customers across phone, email and address and shows their record before you book — how many parcels were delivered, and whether the last one came back. See repeat-RTO flags.
3. Check the address
An address with no street, no area, or a city that does not match the phone's area is a warning sign. Kaarobar matches cities against the courier's own list and asks when it is unsure, instead of booking a parcel to nowhere.
4. Watch the pattern
Several orders from the same number in an hour, a large first order at 3am, or the same address with different names — each is cheap to catch by eye if the orders are side by side, and invisible if they are scattered across a courier portal.
What to do with a risky order
- Call first when the confirmation goes unanswered.
- Ask for an advance — even the delivery charge — from a customer with a refusal history.
- Cancel an order that fails confirmation. The cost of cancelling before booking is zero.
Kaarobar never blocks an order automatically — it puts the evidence in front of you and the decision stays yours.
Stop shipping fake orders — install freeAbout the author: Hamza Khalid is the founder of Remap Media, which builds Kaarobar. He built Mydrobe.pk, a cash-on-delivery fashion store on Shopify, in 2020 and runs Cellwala.pk. He has spent 10+ years in performance marketing on Meta, Google and TikTok for brands in Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar and the US. More about Hamza
Questions merchants actually ask
- How do I stop fake COD orders on Shopify?
- Confirm each order on WhatsApp before booking it, check the customer's delivery history, check the address, and watch for repeated orders from the same number. Kaarobar automates the confirmation and shows each customer's past deliveries and refusals before you book.
- Should I charge an advance on COD orders?
- For customers with a refusal history, asking for the delivery charge in advance is a common and effective filter. For everyone else it costs conversions, so apply it to risky orders rather than to all of them.
- What does a fake COD order cost?
- Forward freight, return freight, packaging and the ad spend that bought it — with no revenue. Across the stores we measure, 27.5% of COD parcels were returned.