Score the transaction, hold the risky ones for a short review rather than declining outright, and leave every decline above the threshold to the fraud analyst who decides it.
Ingest orders, authentication results and payment signals from supported commerce, gateway and risk sources.
02
Normalise the fields, and carry every signal forward with the source it came from.
Reason
03
Score the transaction and rank it against the review queue.
04
Apply the rules, thresholds and review policy configured for the merchant.
05
Keep the score about the transaction, and exclude protected characteristics and their close proxies.
Decide
06
Word any customer message about the order alone, not as a claim about the customer.
07
Route every decline above the threshold to the fraud analyst who decides it.
Out
08
Retain the score, its top features, the model version, the rules fired and the reviewer.
09
Execute write actions only inside the approval boundaries agreed during implementation.
→Product statement
The agent scores; the fraud analyst decides — and a wrongly declined order is a customer who simply leaves, while a wrongly filed representment is a network-rule matter with its own limits.
Example workflow
One order, score to decision
AgentHuman
1Order receivedA checkout, a stored-credential reorder or a card-not-present transaction
2Features assembledAuthentication result, payment signals, order history and tenure, each with its source
3Transaction scoredThe score, its top contributing features, the rules fired and confidence
Stages one to four run unaided — the agent scores and ranks, and the analyst's lane opens at the confidence gate for every decline that has to be reviewed.
5DecisionSplits at the decision threshold
Low risk
Goes to the fraud analyst to decide.
Elevated risk
Adds a senior risk read first.
Fraud-analyst review
The order is held with its score, its top features and the confidence.
Release · Uphold · Escalate to risk
Decided — released or declined▼
6Order systems updatedOnly where write access and approval policy allow it
The false-decline rate is the share of legitimate orders declined, or held until the customer abandons them. Nestack reports it by slice as a lift on the all-transaction baseline.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregateIllustrative example
Slice
Failure rate
Lift
Lift vs. threshold
Status
First-time, forwarder, high value
6.5%
3.8×
Review
Consumer-report identity checks
4.8%
2.8×
Review
Established customers, real victims
2.4%
1.4×
Watch
Repeat domestic, stored credential
1.2%
0.7×
Normal
Bar: false-decline lift vs. the all-transaction baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks the 2.0× review threshold2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
A cycle closes on a case, not a review
A cycle finishes when the failure has a case, an owner and a release that must pass it.
Improvement cycle · five stagesSwitchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
01Detect
False declines rise in one customer segment.
02Diagnose
While the gap in that segment stays open, the analyst replays the declines and their features until one cause is left.
03Improve
The correction is stamped and linked to the decisions that produced it.
04Verify
Re-running the affected cases is the release condition.
05Learn
A permanent case, plus a change to the decision policy.
Learn → DetectThe return edge. Each detection meets more standing cases than the one before.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, sources, decision workflow, evaluation, integration, then production validation and handover.
WorkstreamWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
01Decision workflow discovery and boundary definition.
02Gateway and processor-source assessment.
03Rule, threshold and review-policy mapping and rule mapping.
04Order and payment-record ingestion.
05Scoring logic and signal-provenance.
06Confidence scoring and review routing.
07Fraud-analyst review.
08Gateway, risk and dispute integration.
09Decision regression cases.
10Guardrails and decline controls.
11Score-trail instrumentation.
12Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover.
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallelFinal scope and sequence confirmed in discovery
Engagement tiers
What each tier includes
Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.
Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tierPilotOne channel, one payment setProductionProduction decision volumeAdvancedMultiple channels / regions
Introduced at Pilot
Scoring to your rules and thresholds✓✓✓
Fraud-analyst review✓✓✓
Decision-quality baseline✓✓✓
Introduced at Production
Reporting by segment—✓✓
Review workflow in your systems—✓✓
Approved write-back to order systems—✓✓
Risk-platform integration—✓✓
Introduced at Advanced
Multi-region decision rule sets——✓
Multi-stage risk approvals——✓
High transaction volume——✓
Enterprise risk controls——✓
Build priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build priceConfirmed after discovery based on integrations, workflow complexity, transaction volume, approval controls and deployment requirements.
Separate from buildBuild pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.
What we need from you
What you bring, and what we build with it
Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.
You bringWe build with it
01Your decline rules, thresholds and review policy→Rule, threshold and review-policy mappingWeek 1
02Representative past decisions→Scoring baseline, feature review and provenance bindingWeek 2
03Your vendors and their consumer-report status→Threshold and review-policy mapping, and the automation boundaryWeek 1
04Access to relevant APIs, feeds or exports→Gateway, risk and dispute assessment, then integration setupWeek 2
05Declines you had to apologise for→Decision cases and failure-mode testingWeek 4
06Which declines must be reviewed before they stand→Risk bands, review routing and decline controlsWeek 3
07A named analyst to review declines→Analyst review workflow, then pilot and production validationWeeks 5–6
Nothing else is requiredDeployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
Bands follow the work rather than the calendar, and evaluation shares week 5 with the pilot.
PhaseW1W2W3W4W5W6
DiscoveryW1
BuildW2 – W3
EvaluateW4 – W5
Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focusW1Decision workflow discovery, threshold mapping and the automation boundaryW2Signal and network data connectedW3Scoring workflow, confidence logic and review controlsW4Decision cases and decline guardrailsW5Dispute integration, pilot decisions and targeted correctionsW6A live decision window reviewed by the analyst, then handover
Reading the bandNo padding — week 5 genuinely carries both evaluation and pilot.
At the end of W6Checks close on live decisions and Agent Care takes the monitoring.
DurationSix-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · Retail AI agent
Build a fraud agent that is precise about which law actually applies.
A merchant declining a card is not a creditor taking adverse action; the real hooks are state unfair-practices and public-accommodation law, and fair-credit-reporting duties where a consumer report is used. Show us your decline rules and who signs a representment.
