---
title: What Is TrustLens
description: "TrustLens is a behavior-based customer trust scoring and fraud detection plugin for WooCommerce. It analyzes the order, refund, coupon, dispute, and checkout data your store already generates, turns it into a single 0–100 trust score per customer, and sorts every…"
url: "https://webstepper.io/docs/trustlens/getting-started/what-is-trustlens/"
updated: "2026-10-18"
category: Getting Started
---

# What Is TrustLens

TrustLens is a behavior-based customer trust scoring and fraud detection plugin for WooCommerce. It analyzes the order, refund, coupon, dispute, and checkout data your store already generates, turns it into a single 0–100 trust score per customer, and sorts every shopper into one of six risk segments — VIP, Trusted, Normal, Caution, Risk, or Critical. Eight detection modules run quietly in the background so abuse patterns surface before they cost you margin.

## Core Capabilities

TrustLens is built around four ideas: see every customer clearly, catch the abuse patterns that drain margin, give you the data to act, and never auto-block in the free tier without your explicit decision.

### Trust Score Engine

Every customer receives a 0–100 trust score recalculated automatically when behavior changes — a completed or cancelled order, a refund, a coupon order, or a recorded dispute. Scoring runs asynchronously through Action Scheduler (the same background system WooCommerce uses) so it never blocks the frontend. Customers below the configurable Full-confidence Order Threshold (default: 3 orders) are scored cautiously — most modules wait for more history and return risk is confidence-weighted — so new stores don't get noisy false positives in their first weeks, though a new customer's score can still move on a refund, a linked account, or tenure.

### Six Customer Segments

The 0–100 scale is split into six clearly defined segments, each with its own color, icon, and recommended treatment:

| Segment | Score | Meaning | Suggested Treatment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **VIP** | 90–100 | Long-tenured, high-value, low-friction customers | Reward, fast-track, protect from false positives |
| **Trusted** | 70–89 | Reliable repeat buyers | Normal processing |
| **Normal** | 50–69 | Average customer, no notable signals | Normal processing |
| **Caution** | 30–49 | Early warning signs — watch the trend | Monitor, consider optional friction |
| **Risk** | 10–29 | Behavior pattern consistent with abuse | Hold for review, require verification before fulfilling |
| **Critical** | 0–9 | Confirmed abuse signals across multiple modules | Manual approval or block |

### Eight Detection Modules

TrustLens ships with eight independent detection modules. Each contributes to the score, so you can see exactly which patterns moved a customer in either direction:

- **Return Abuse Detection** — return rate against your store baseline, refund value, delivered full refunds and other return patterns, confidence-weighted
- **Order Pattern Analysis** — completed orders, order value, cancellation patterns
- **Coupon Abuse Detection** — first-order coupons, coupon-then-refund cycles, coupon usage rate, first-order coupons across linked accounts
- **Category-Aware Risk Scoring** — category and product context that raises or lowers the return-abuse penalty
- **Linked Accounts Detection** — accounts sharing shipping/billing addresses, phone numbers, or payment methods (a shared IP or device alone never links accounts)
- **Shipping Address Anomalies** — address hopping, billing/shipping country mismatches, address-change velocity
- **Chargeback Tracking** — per-customer dispute history with automatic ingestion from Stripe and WooPayments
- **Card-Testing Defense** — real-time decline-velocity monitoring at checkout with attacker fingerprint lockouts

### Command Center Dashboard

One screen at **TrustLens → Dashboard** surfaces the metrics that matter: trust score trends over the last 30 days, segment distribution across all customers, refund activity, the high-risk customer list, live telemetry KPIs, and a chargeback-ratio alert that appears the moment your ratio crosses a Visa, Mastercard, Amex, or Discover monitoring line (Pro adds a live per-network Chargeback Ratio Monitor panel). A persistent plugin-wide admin header gives every page a live status pill, notifications bell, and ⌘K command palette for fast access to any customer, page, or setting.

### You Decide What Happens

TrustLens never auto-blocks in Free. When a customer enters Risk or Critical, you review their profile — every signal that moved their score is shown with its specific reason — and you choose what to do: block at checkout, allowlist forever, hold orders for review, or simply watch the trend. Nothing happens behind your back.

---

## Key Benefits

| Benefit | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **See the money you're losing** | Refund value, coupon abuse, and chargeback exposure rolled into per-customer numbers you can act on. |
| **Protect the customers worth keeping** | VIP segmentation and allowlist locking ensure your best customers never get caught by false positives. |
| **Stay below card-network thresholds** | Monthly chargeback ratio checked against the Visa VAMP, Mastercard ECP, Amex, and Discover lines — an alert in Free, per-network tracking in Pro so you see trouble coming. |
| **Stop card-testing attacks live** | Real-time decline-velocity detection, attacker fingerprint lockouts, and one-click Panic Freeze if an attack escalates. |
| **Explain every decision** | Every signal on every score is visible, so CX teams can justify a hold, block, or refund denial with data. |
| **No third-party data sharing** | All scoring runs inside your WordPress install — no customer data leaves your site, and matching identifiers are pseudonymized with keyed HMAC-SHA256. |

---

## Who Should Use TrustLens?

- **WooCommerce store owners** losing margin to serial returners, refund abuse, or coupon fraud
- **Operations and CX managers** who need data to back up customer policies with confidence
- **Fraud prevention teams** looking past payment-gateway signals into behavioral patterns
- **Merchants worried about chargeback monitoring programs** (Visa VAMP / Mastercard ECP)
- **Stores with generous return policies** that attract both loyal customers and abuse
- **Stripe / WooPayments stores** where dispute and card-brand data ingest automatically
- **Stores on other gateways** (PayPal, Square, offline, custom) using manual chargeback entry to keep their ratio accurate

---

## How It Works

### 1. Install and Sync

Activate the plugin, then run **Historical Sync** from the dashboard. TrustLens reads your existing WooCommerce orders, refunds, and coupon use in small batches and builds a trust profile for every past customer (past disputes aren't imported — record any you need with manual chargeback entry). The sync runs in the background and does not slow down your storefront.

### 2. Detection Runs Automatically

From activation onward, all eight detection modules listen for relevant WooCommerce events — order completed, refund issued, coupon applied, dispute filed, decline received at checkout — and log signals to a customer's record. Score recalculation is queued automatically with deduplication so a single customer placing five orders in a minute is recalculated once, not five times.

### 3. Review Risk and Act

The Dashboard surfaces customers who need attention. The Customer Detail page shows the full event timeline, every signal that contributed to the score, linked accounts, and a return-rate trend chart. From there you can block at checkout, add to the allowlist, leave admin notes, or trigger a manual recalculation.

### 4. Automate (Pro)

Pro adds an automation engine with 16+ triggers, 30+ condition fields, and async-dispatched actions. Rules fire when risk changes — e.g. "If chargeback filed and trust score < 30, send Slack alert and block customer." A save-time validator blocks rules that can never fire so you don't discover broken automation only when an attack lands.

---

## Free vs Pro Comparison

| Feature Category | Free | Pro |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Detection** |  |  |
| All 8 detection modules | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trust scoring engine (0–100, 6 segments) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-customer signal visibility | ✓ | ✓ |
| Account-age loyalty bonus | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced address-diversity analysis | — | ✓ |
| **Card-Testing Defense** |  |  |
| Real-time velocity detection | ✓ | ✓ |
| Panic Freeze button | ✓ | ✓ |
| VIP customer bypass | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-escalation to global Panic Freeze | — | ✓ |
| Geographic-diversity safeguard | — | ✓ |
| Fingerprint / IP CIDR allowlists | — | ✓ |
| 12-font advanced fingerprint signal | — | ✓ |
| Attack History tab + CSV export | — | ✓ |
| Slack + email attack alerts | — | ✓ |
| **Chargeback Monitor** |  |  |
| Chargeback-ratio alert when a network line is crossed | ✓ | ✓ |
| Stripe / WooPayments auto-ingestion | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manual dispute entry | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-brand Visa/MC/Amex/Discover breakdown | — | ✓ |
| 12-month trend chart | — | ✓ |
| Trailing-30-day window | — | ✓ |
| Dispute Evidence Report (print-ready) | — | ✓ |
| Auto-block after N lost disputes | — | ✓ |
| Daily ratio email alerts | — | ✓ |
| **Customer Management** |  |  |
| Trust badges on WooCommerce orders list | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer detail profile | ✓ | ✓ |
| Block / Allowlist / Bulk actions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Checkout enforcement (Classic + Blocks) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Order-edit-screen trust display | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Automation** |  |  |
| Automation rules engine | — | ✓ |
| 16+ triggers, 30+ condition fields | — | ✓ |
| HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks | — | ✓ |
| Async dispatch with retries | — | ✓ |
| Save-time validator + rule inspector | — | ✓ |
| **Notifications & Reports** |  |  |
| Core email notifications (block, weekly, activation) | ✓ | ✓ |
| 10 advanced notification types | — | ✓ |
| Scheduled reports (daily/weekly/monthly) | — | ✓ |
| Payment Method Risk Controls | — | ✓ |
| **Platform** |  |  |
| REST API (8 endpoints) | ✓ | ✓ |
| WooCommerce HPOS compatible | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR privacy export / erasure | ✓ | ✓ |
| Historical Sync | ✓ | ✓ |
| Priority support | — | ✓ |

The WordPress.org download is the **complete plugin** — no trial limits, no disabled scoring, no locked modules. Everything in the Free column above ships in the free release.

---

## Technical Requirements

| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
| --- | --- | --- |
| WordPress | 6.4 | 6.8+ |
| WooCommerce | 8.0 | 9.5+ |
| PHP | 7.4 | 8.1+ |
| MySQL | 5.6 | 8.0+ |
| MariaDB | 10.1 | 10.6+ |
| PHP Memory Limit | 128 MB | 256 MB+ |

### Compatibility

- **HPOS Compatible** — Full support for WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage
- **Classic + Blocks Checkout** — Unified Request Gate intercepts both Shortcode and Store API checkouts through one rule surface
- **Stripe + WooPayments** — Native dispute and card-brand ingestion via webhooks
- **Other gateways** — Manual dispute entry keeps your ratio accurate on PayPal, Square, offline, and custom gateways
- **Block + Classic themes** — No frontend dependencies on theme markup

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## Privacy and Data Handling

TrustLens runs entirely inside your WordPress and WooCommerce installation. It does not send customer data to Webstepper or to any default third-party service. External delivery only happens if you explicitly configure webhooks, Slack alerts, or email notifications. (The one default outbound call is Pro's optional dispute-report verification, which sends a non-personal fingerprint of a generated report and can be switched off.)

- Customer matching keys are pseudonymized with **keyed HMAC-SHA256 hashes**, keyed with your site's own WordPress secret, so they can't be reversed or matched across sites (the customer's email is stored alongside so you can see who you're acting on)
- Linked-account fingerprints (address, phone, IP, payment method, device) use the same keyed-hash approach
- **WordPress privacy tools** are fully integrated — customers can request export or erasure through the standard WordPress workflow, and TrustLens returns signals, fingerprints, category stats, and automation logs
- **GDPR-compatible** by design

---

## Architecture Highlights

- **Modular Detection** — Each detection type is a self-contained module that can be toggled independently
- **Asynchronous Scoring** — Action Scheduler queues score recalculations with deduplication so duplicate triggers collapse into one job
- **Unified Request Gate** — A single rule-registration surface intercepts both Classic and Blocks / Store API checkout
- **Cached Dashboard Data** — chargeback ratios cached for 15 minutes (the trend for 1 hour) and the high-risk list for 5 minutes, invalidated automatically on new events
- **Security First** — Nonce verification, capability checks, prepared statements, and keyed-hash pseudonymization throughout
- **WordPress Standards** — Follows WordPress and WooCommerce coding standards; no framework dependencies