Accertify’s Stuart Mann on Why Loyalty Programs Have Become a New Front Line for QSR Fraud

Loyalty programs have become central to how quick-service restaurants drive repeat visits, digital engagement, and personalized customer experiences. But as their value has grown, so has their appeal to fraudsters, making account protection an increasingly important part of QSR fraud strategies.

In a new article for QSRWeb, Loyalty Programs Have Become New Front Line of QSR Fraud, Accertify’s Stuart Mann, Head of Industry Product Engagement, examines the growing threat of loyalty account abuse in the wake of the recent credential stuffing attack targeting Chick-fil-A customers. The incident illustrates how attackers can use credentials compromised elsewhere to gain access to legitimate customer accounts containing rewards, stored payment methods, and personal information.

Mann explains that these attacks are also changing where QSRs need to look for fraud. Rather than beginning at the point of payment, account takeover can start much earlier through login activity, credential stuffing, or changes to an existing account. Accertify research reflects that shift, with 84% of surveyed QSR fraud and security leaders saying they are expanding fraud controls into account login and 60% strengthening protections around account changes.

Protecting loyalty programs therefore requires looking across the broader customer journey. Mann highlights how signals such as device intelligence, login behavior, account modifications, and transaction activity can help QSRs recognize patterns that may appear routine individually but become suspicious when viewed together.

At the same time, stronger account protection shouldn’t mean creating more friction for every customer. Mann argues that QSRs should focus on identifying where risk actually warrants intervention, allowing them to make abuse more difficult while maintaining the convenient digital experiences that make loyalty programs valuable in the first place.

As loyalty programs increasingly underpin digital ordering, payments, personalization, and customer retention, protecting those accounts is becoming about more than preventing lost points or fraudulent transactions. Ultimately, it is about protecting the customer relationship itself.

Read Stuart Mann’s full article in QSRWeb.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is loyalty fraud in quick-service restaurants?
Loyalty fraud occurs when someone exploits a QSR rewards program to obtain points, discounts, free items, or other benefits they were not intended to receive. Common examples include creating multiple accounts, taking over legitimate customer accounts, manipulating referral programs, and repeatedly redeeming limited-use promotions.

What is promotion abuse in QSRs?
Promotion abuse is the misuse of restaurant coupons, referral credits, welcome offers, discount codes, or app-exclusive promotions. It can include promo stacking, duplicate account creation, automated redemption using bots, and sharing restricted promotional codes publicly.

What are the most common types of restaurant loyalty and promotion abuse?
Common forms include multiple account creation, referral self-dealing, promo stacking, automated redemption using bots, loyalty account takeover, and unauthorized promotional code sharing. Because these activities occur at different points in the customer journey, QSRs may need to evaluate several connected signals to identify them.

How can QSRs detect loyalty and promotion abuse?
QSRs can detect potential abuse by monitoring patterns across account creation, login, promotion enrollment, referral activity, checkout, and reward redemption. Warning signs can include multiple accounts connected to the same device, unusual redemption velocity, disposable email addresses, suspicious referral relationships, and rewards redeemed shortly after account creation.

How can restaurants identify customers creating multiple loyalty accounts?
Restaurants can look for accounts that share device fingerprints, IP ranges, delivery addresses, email patterns, or referral behavior. Evaluating connections across accounts can help identify multi-accounting that may not be visible when each registration is reviewed separately.

What is promo stacking, and how does it affect QSR profitability?
Promo stacking occurs when a customer combines multiple discount codes, loyalty rewards, or promotional offers beyond what the terms allow. At scale, it can reduce per-order profitability, erode campaign margins, and make redemption performance appear stronger than the campaign’s actual financial results.

What is loyalty account takeover?
Loyalty account takeover occurs when a bad actor gains unauthorized access to a legitimate customer’s account. The attacker may redeem points, transfer rewards, change account information, or access stored payment methods before the customer notices.

Can bots abuse restaurant loyalty programs?
Yes. Bots can automatically create accounts, claim promotions, and redeem rewards at a speed and volume ordinary customers cannot match. Because attackers may rotate IP addresses or manipulate device information, QSRs should evaluate behavioral and technical signals together rather than relying only on individual transactions.

Why do traditional payment fraud tools miss loyalty abuse?
Traditional fraud controls often focus on the payment transaction, while loyalty abuse can begin during registration, login, offer enrollment, referral activity, reward redemption, or customer support. Connecting activity across the customer journey helps QSRs identify coordinated patterns that may otherwise appear legitimate.

How can QSRs prevent loyalty fraud without adding customer friction?
QSRs can use risk-based decisioning that evaluates account, device, behavioral, and transaction signals together. This allows brands to apply additional scrutiny to suspicious activity while maintaining a fast, convenient experience for legitimate customers.