Tackling a Growing Industry Challenge

Fraudulent redemptions have become a significant issue in market research, creating financial losses, data quality risks, and unnecessary administrative burdens. While generic digital gifting platforms provide limited fraud checks, Yesty’s new feature is the first defence system designed specifically for the research industry.

“Fraud in incentive delivery not only drains budgets but undermines trust between agencies, panels, and end clients”

Nick Stals, CEO of Yesty

How It Works

RewardShield activates at the point of redemption. When a participant attempts to redeem an incentive, the system automatically checks multiple parameters, including:

• Email & Domain Blacklisting – Blocks known fraudulent accounts.
• IP & Geolocation Restrictions – Identifies suspicious locations or mismatches.
• Device Fingerprinting – Flags repeat or spoofed devices.
• Bot Detection – Prevents automated redemption attempts.

Each attempt is logged, with results available for reporting and compliance purposes. If fraud is detected, administrators receive an alert and can manually review and decide whether to approve or block the redemption. This ensures that legitimate participants are never unfairly excluded while protecting budgets and data quality.

What Sets Yesty Apart

Unlike generic digital payment providers, Yesty has tailored RewardShield specifically for the nuances of research incentives. Features such as country-by-country reward rules, a research-specific fraud database, and layered detection methods give research teams confidence that their incentive programmes are protected without introducing delays.

“Market research operates on a delicate balance of trust, speed, and compliance. RewardShield is not just another fraud filter. It is a research-first system designed to save operations teams time, reduce financial exposure, and deliver incentives seamlessly to genuine participants.”

Irapuan Bottosso, CTPO at Yesty

Benefits for Operations, Procurement, and Research Teams

RewardShield has been developed to support multiple stakeholders across the research value chain:

• Operations teams save hours otherwise lost to manual fraud checks and investigation.
• Research managers can maintain confidence in participant pools and protect data quality.
• Procurement teams avoid financial leakage caused by invalid redemptions.
• Clients benefit from transparent, reportable fraud prevention measures that align with GDPR

The outcome is faster, safer incentive delivery, stronger compliance, and restored trust between agencies, panels, and their clients.

Future-Proofing Research Incentives

RewardShield is already live, with core capabilities including IP, email, device, and bot detection, along with administrator alerts and manual override. The system also integrates at API level, allowing agencies and platforms to embed fraud checks directly into their workflows.

Looking ahead, Yesty plans to expand RewardShield with:

• Risk scoring powered by machine learning to classify redemption attempts by likelihood of fraud.
• A full reporting dashboard per client and project, enabling richer insights into fraud trends and incentive redemption patterns.

Industry Momentum

As fraud prevention becomes an industry-wide concern, the launch of RewardShield represents a significant step forward. According to industry reports, incentive fraud costs research agencies substantial sums annually and creates a compliance risk that many clients are no longer willing to tolerate. By addressing this problem with a system built specifically for research, Yesty aims to position itself as a leader in secure and compliant reward delivery.

RewardShield is now available for all Yesty clients, with full documentation and onboarding support provided. Agencies, panels, and research buyers interested in learning more about how Yesty can safeguard their incentive programmes can request a demo or contact their account manager. To learn more reach out to us, we’re happy to show how our solutions can strengthen your fraud prevention and participant experience.