Risk & Blocklists
Some buyers place COD orders they never intend to accept. Risk & blocklists let you shut them out — without adding any friction for your good customers.
Open COD verification → Settings → Risk & blocklists in app.uselevel.ai .
What you can do
- Block specific buyers by phone number, email, or IP address.
- Limit repeat orders — for example, at most 3 COD orders from the same phone or IP in 24 hours.
- Learn from other merchants — opt in to the shared risk network to block buyers already flagged by other Level stores.
What happens to a blocked buyer
Where the block kicks in depends on how the customer orders:
| How they order | What happens |
|---|---|
| Regular Shopify checkout | Blocked phones and emails don’t see COD as a payment option. They can still pay online. |
| Regular Shopify checkout (blocked IP) | Shopify doesn’t tell apps the visitor’s address during checkout, so the order goes through — but Level skips the WhatsApp confirmation and tags the order so your team can review it before shipping. |
| Buy with COD button | All checks run before the order is created — blocked phone, email, or IP means no order at all. |
Tip: if blocked IPs matter to you (common with bot attacks), turn on the Buy with COD button. It’s the only way to stop a bad IP before the order exists.
Block a buyer in one click
You don’t have to type numbers into lists. On any order page in Level, click Block phone, Block email, or Block IP — the value is added to your blocklist immediately.
Limit orders per buyer
Bots and pranksters often place many COD orders in a burst. Turn on order limits to catch this:
- Limit COD orders per phone — e.g. max 3 orders in 24 hours from the same number
- Limit COD orders per IP — same idea, by internet address
Orders over the limit don’t get a WhatsApp confirmation and are tagged for your review.
Shared risk network
Fraudsters rarely target just one store. The Level shared network lets merchants warn each other:
- Use the network — skip WhatsApp confirmation when a buyer has been reported by other Level merchants (at least 2 different stores by default).
- Contribute — when you block a buyer from an order, share that signal with the network.
Your customers’ details stay private: only scrambled fingerprints of the phone/email/IP are shared, never the actual values. Both options are off until you opt in.
How you’ll see it in Shopify
When Level skips a confirmation for a risk reason, it tags the Shopify order — for example level-blocked-phone, level-ip-velocity, or level-network-risk. Your fulfillment team can filter on these tags and hold those orders. See Shopify tags & notes.
Related
- Buy with COD button — stop blocked buyers before the order is created
- Verification skip rules — skip WhatsApp by cart value, PIN code, or tags
- COD at checkout — hide COD by cart value, PIN code, product, or customer tag
Need help for Risk and blocklists?
- — live chat on this page
- Contact form — email the Level team
- Open Level app — in-app Help button for account-specific issues
- Troubleshooting guides