In today's world, you cannot launch an online product and not get fake signups. Add in a free trial to the mix and you will definitely get people willing to create repeat accounts just to stay on the free trial forever.

When you give a new user a free trial, you give them value with the hopes of potentially converting them to a customer - if they like the product. When someone exploits this by creating an account after an account, they are practically stealing value from you that you did not intend them to have.

Luckily, you can save hours investigating fraudulent signups by using ThumbmarkJS, which translates to clear savings.

Examples of Fraud

A service allowing to send invoices for free will attract abusers sending abundant fraudulent invoices in hopes of someone accidentally paying.
An online gambling site will attract criminals to launder money between different accounts they own.
Second-hand marketplaces are infested with fraudsters that sell an item that doesn't exist. When they get caught and shut down, they return under a new account.
Generative AI services often allow for a few runs before a signup wall. Users will try to evade this with clearing cookies and using incognito.
Digital subscription services with premium content like high-resolution stock photos are attractive targets for users to abuse free trials forever - if they are allowed to.
Financial services like neo banks have to be especially careful, as they often attract new users with a small cash deposit.
Affiliate marketing often has more account fraud than real signups. Fraudsters search for high-paying affiliate campaigns and use bots to generate affiliate revenue with fake signups.

How to Mitigate and Prevent New Account Fraud

As users sign up, you can assign them a digital fingerprint with ThumbmarkJS. This digital fingerprint is highly unique and stable, even when browser cache is cleared or if incognito mode is used.

When you notice abusive behavior from a user, you can use its digital fingerprint and find out any other accounts with the same fingerprint. You can also flag the fingerprint for any future signups, allowing you to be alerted of future accounts with the same fingerprint.

ThumbmarkJS also provides smart signals about the traffic, such as if it is done by a bot, or if it has been reported for fraud by other service providers.

What actions you can take

Ideally, you would have a tiered approach to mitigation. Traffic you deem safe should have no friction and should be allowed normally. Suspicious traffic should be challenged with e.g. a captcha or a way to prove their identity more strongly and be alerted for your fraud prevention team for further investigation. When the red flags are too many and too bright, you can simply deny access.

Doing these in the smart way creates immense tangible savings: prevent losses from fraud and save time fighting back.

Measurable benefits

Save money: When abusing new account fraud becomes harder, you'll save money when you only need to produce service to real potential customers. You'll also save in your marketing budget, when you can allocate it more accurately.
Save time: Even with proper measures, you will still see fraud. However, it will take a fraction of the time it used to to track and stop it.
Accurate insights: Fraud has a tendency to mess your analytics. When you effectively filter fraud from your funnel analytics, you'll make better product decisions.