Patent ID: 8799122

Claim:
A method for identifying an origin of fraudulent activity, comprising: receiving, from a first user, a first fraud flag identifying a first financial transaction between the first user and a payee as fraudulent, wherein the first user sets the first fraud flag; obtaining, by a computer processor, a fraud score for the payee from a fraud aggregation table, wherein the fraud score is based on a plurality of fraud flags set by a plurality of users and identifying a plurality of transactions between the plurality of users and the payee as fraudulent, and wherein the fraud score is further based on the plurality of fraud flags associated with the payee within a time span; obtaining, by the computer processor, a fraud score threshold associated with the payee; incrementing, in response to receiving the first fraud flag, the fraud score to obtain an incremented fraud score; making a determination that the incremented fraud score exceeds the fraud score threshold; retrieving, in response to the determination, a financial transaction entry associated with a second financial transaction between a second user and the payee after the second financial transaction is complete, wherein the financial transaction entry associated with the second financial transaction comprises a date within the time span; and alerting the second user, based on the determination, that the payee is a potential origin of fraud after the second financial transaction is complete.