How to stop fake COD orders on your Pakistani Shopify store

Updated July 5, 2026 · ACOD (E-TRADE PARTNER)

Fake COD orders are Pakistan's most expensive e-commerce problem, and the defense is layered: restrict COD to Pakistan and to cities your courier serves reliably, set a minimum and maximum order value, add a small COD fee so a bogus order costs the prankster something to imitate, and block known refusers with customer tags. All four rules run at checkout via ACOD; confirmation calls and OTP tools stack on top for the orders that get through.

The fake-order tax on Pakistani stores

With most Pakistani stores running the large majority of orders on COD, every fake order is a real parcel: picked, packed, shipped, refused (or never answered), and shipped back, with the courier charging you for both directions. Wrong numbers, prank orders, and competitor mischief all look identical to a real order at checkout. You can't make fake orders impossible, but you can make them expensive to place, easy to catch, and cheap to survive.

Layer 1: COD only where it can work

Start with geography. If you sell internationally at all, restrict COD to Pakistan with a one-line country allowlist; a COD order your courier can't collect on is a guaranteed loss. Within Pakistan, if TCS, Leopards, PostEx or your courier of choice collects reliably only in major cities, a city allowlist keeps COD to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, and wherever your delivery data is actually good. Everyone else checks out prepaid via card or wallet.

Layer 2: order-value rules

• Maximum: a refused Rs. 15,000 parcel is a serious loss, and large amounts are a favorite of prank orders precisely because they hurt. Cap COD (Rs. 5,000–10,000 is a common band) and let genuine high-ticket buyers prepay. How to pick the number.
• Minimum: below a few hundred rupees, the courier's COD charge exceeds the margin even when the order is real. A floor filters both the uneconomic order and the low-effort prank.

Layer 3: a fee that makes COD cost something

A visible COD fee (Rs. 100–250 is the common band) changes the economics of the fake order in your favor: the real buyer accepts it as normal (couriers charge it themselves on marketplace orders), while the wallet-capable buyer switches to prepaid to avoid it, self-verifying the order in the process. Set it up as a shipping rate linked to the COD payment method so it can't be dodged, and it also covers the courier's cash-handling charge on legitimate COD orders.

Layer 4: the refuser blocklist

Refusals repeat. When a customer refuses a parcel or is unreachable at delivery, tag the customer account (manually or with Shopify Flow) and hide COD for that tag from then on. They keep the option to buy prepaid, so you lose the refusal risk without losing the customer. One Shopify limitation to know: guests without customer accounts can't be tag-matched, so the blocklist works best alongside phone-number checks at the courier or confirmation stage.

What stacks on top: confirmation workflows

The layers above stop most bogus orders from existing. For what remains, Pakistani stores typically confirm before dispatch: a WhatsApp message or quick call for first-time customers and larger orders, courier-side phone verification, or an OTP app if volume justifies automation. ACOD deliberately doesn't do OTP or partial advance collection; it handles the checkout rules, and confirmation tools run alongside it without conflict. If you're choosing between approaches, do the checkout rules first: they're one-time setup and work on every order automatically.

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