Documentation

How the Traffic Light System Works

Our Traffic Light System (TLS) is built into your First Data plugin.
It gives you a quick, colour-coded view of how risky a payment might be.

Think of it as your fraud radar: it checks multiple security factors and shows you what’s safe, what needs a second look, and what’s too risky.

Why it’s useful

• Spot high-risk orders before you ship
• Reduce the chance of chargebacks
• Understand why a payment failed (fraud or just a technical/payment issue)
• Save time by focusing only on orders that need attention

How it works

TLS looks at these key checks:

It then gives each order a risk score from 0 to 100.

Understanding the colours

Examples

Below are examples of how TLS appears for different risk levels and scenarios.

Payment failures that aren’t fraud

Sometimes payments fail for non-fraud reasons, such as:

• Expired card
• Insufficient funds
• Transaction not allowed
• Duplicate payment

Action: Ask the customer to contact their bank or try another card.

Where to see TLS results

• Order list — risk level badge next to each order
• Order details page — full breakdown of checks and results
• Info modal — detailed explanations of each check

No setup required — TLS works automatically when the plugin is active.

Tips for using TLS

• Don’t worry about a single failed check — look at the overall score
• Watch for patterns (e.g. same email and address but different cards)
• Use the colour as a guide — your business rules decide the final action
• Contact AG Support for any system errors or unclear results

Tell us what you think

We’re always looking to improving TLS. If you’ve got:

• Feedback on how it works
• Requests for extra checks
• Ideas for making results clearer

Send us your thoughts →