Referral bonuses paid
to the same person
Check the link between referrer and signup before paying for a new customer.
Decision trace
Example · enforcing modeSelf-referral
- Input signalsNew account and referrer share a device from the referrer's last verification.
- Reason ids
self_referral - Decision
limit·referral.selfReferral: true - BonusYour backend withholds the reward
How it works
Resolve attribution
Send the referrer's existing account id from your backend. An unchecked browser claim is not enough.
Check the links
Look for shared account, device, normalized email or network evidence, plus device-linked referral rings.
Gate the bonus
Require an allow decision and no self-referral or ring flag before issuing the reward.
API
Add referral attribution to verification. Keep the secret server-side.
POST https://nolgard.com/v1/verify
Content-Type: application/json
{
"secret": "SITE_SECRET",
"token": "BROWSER_TOKEN",
"account": { "id": "new_account" },
"referrer": { "accountId": "user_42" }
}
// Example response fields
{
"success": true,
"decision": "limit",
"referral": {
"selfReferral": true,
"ring": false
}
}Limits
self_referralcovers the same account, a shared device from the referrer's last verify, normalized email within 30 days, or a network prefix within 24 hours. A shared household can trigger it.referral_ringrequires more than five distinct referred accounts in 30 days, each sharing a device with another account referred by that referrer. Re-verifying one account does not increase the count.- Both reasons are unscored: they flag abuse without increasing the bot score. The returned grant still follows your site's trial policy.
- Verification success validates the token; it says nothing about bonus eligibility. In observe mode inspect referral flags and
wouldDecidebefore paying. - Referral correlation needs an account and attribution. Edges store site-scoped keyed hashes and expire after 30 days.
- A storage outage can leave referral correlation unavailable without rejecting a valid token. Missing flags are no proof that two people are independent.