High Risk Businesses and Services
Industry insights and analysis to help platforms and payment service providers evaluate and action merchants offering services that pose elevated regulatory and card network risk.
High-risk services are ones that pose a greater potential for abuse or harm to consumers, which is why it’s essential to understand the regulatory and card network rules that govern them. LegitScript offers insights that help platforms and payment services providers evaluate these services with confidence. Our policy expertise and regulatory knowledge support better policy making and decisioning during merchant onboarding and merchant monitoring.
Merchants offering high-risk business models — everything from negative-option billing and multilevel marketing to sweepstakes casinos and loans — expose them to greater chargebacks, fraud, and regulatory scrutiny.
Blog Articles
Latest Blog Article
Fraud by Prompt: Key Takeaways on Problematic Uses of AI at MRNYC
September 22, 2026
From deepfake product photos to AI-generated NCII, trust and safety teams are facing a threat that shifts faster than most policies can keep up with. At Marketplace Risk’s New York conference, a panel of experts broke down the evasion tactics bad actors are using right now, the gray areas that trip up even experienced teams, and what it actually takes to build a policy that holds up.
What’s Leaking Through Your Controls?
Even the best controls aren’t perfect. As evasion tactics evolve faster than controls can adapt, platforms must start asking more questions about the violative behavior they aren’t seeing and how they can better address a confluence of challenges to stay ahead of what’s next. Read more.
September 15, 2026
How Network Investigators Stop Bad Actors on Platforms — and How You Can Too
One bad account is rarely just one bad account. Pull the thread and a single bad actor can unravel an entire criminal network interwoven throughout the internet. Here’s how investigation teams track the signals, differentiate between different kinds of networks, and turn scattered clues into enforcement that sticks.
September 1, 2026
Guides
Merchant Website Analysis Tip Sheet
Designed for payments risk and compliance teams, this helpful sheet offers practical tips when reviewing merchant websites.
2 pages
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Top 10 High-risk Trends That Put Your Internet Platform at Risk
Learn about recent high-risk trends on the commercial internet that can harm consumers and damage your reputation.
36 pages
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Seasonal High-risk Trends Everyone in Payments Should Watch Out For
Gain insight into seasonal high-risk trends in card-not-present transactions that all payment service providers should be aware of.
48 pages
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Mugshots Map
Learn how certain mugshot websites could result in fines for acquirers and payment providers that onboard them.
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Webinars
On Demand
Online Prediction Markets and Sweepstakes Casinos
When you think of gambling, you might think of buying a lottery ticket or making a sports bet. But what about prediction markets and sweepstakes casinos? In this webinar, we’ll discuss the popular yet legally contentious state of online prediction markets and sweepstakes casinos and discuss their evolving risks.
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On Demand
Connecting the Dots: How Investigation Teams Build Networks and Disrupt Criminal Ecosystems
This session from the 2026 San Francisco Marketplace Risk Management Conference features a panel discussion on how investigation teams build network intelligence to disrupt criminal ecosystems. The speakers, including representatives from TikTok and LegitScript, explore the complexities of identifying coordinated bad actors.
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On Demand
Trust and Safety Isn’t a Cost Center: It’s a Growth Engine
This session from the 2026 San Francisco Marketplace Risk Management Conference covers the role of trust and safety teams as a “growth engine” and how professionals in this field can navigate internal challenges and perceptions. Watch now on demand.
