How to detect and prevent fraudulent till slip entries

Till slip competitions bring people back. They also attract people who would rather not buy. A tampered slip, a fake, a duplicate or a bot can sink the fairness of the draw and the trust of everyone who played properly.

The usual fraud

• Fake or altered slips. A counterfeit, or a real slip edited to claim a prize. Hard to spot by eye once the pile is in the thousands.
• Duplicates. The same slip again, sometimes with a small change, sometimes through a second door, so one purchase becomes several entries.
• The wrong purchase. An old receipt, the wrong retailer, or a spend that never met the minimum.
• Bots. Automated entries that flood the line and crowd out real shoppers.

How Smartslip.ai responds

• AI image recognition looks for altered text, a mismatched font or formatting that does not belong on that till. Suspicious photos are flagged. Not every altered image is found.
• Slip numbers, purchase details and the time of submission are compared, so one receipt cannot be many entries.
• Retailer, date and amount are checked against the rules. A slip that misses them is rejected.
• Bot protection, including a CAPTCHA and a look at unusual traffic, keeps an automated flood from becoming the draw.

What the brand should still do

• Write the retailers, the dates and the minimum spend so people cannot misunderstand them.
• Take entries on WhatsApp or a branded app, not on a door you do not control.
• Watch for one person sending far too many, or the same slip appearing twice.
• Tell people the checks exist. Fairness you explain is fairness they believe.
• Reply as the photo arrives. A real-time review is a deterrent.

The question-and-answer version is how duplicate and fraudulent till slips are stopped.

To plan one, email andrew@brazenlabs.co.za. The short version of how these campaigns work is in till slip campaigns explained.