From November 2025 to February 2026, our models detected 6.2x more abusive free trials. This is part of a shift toward first-party fraud, where users abuse policies by setting up multiple accounts, cycling through free trials, or exploiting refunds.

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Stripe analyzed hundreds of millions of transactions to identify three fast-growing types of first-party fraud: account/multiaccount abuse, free trial abuse, and refund fraud. Key findings include 7.4% of AI company sign-ups implicated in multiaccount abuse, a 6.2x increase in abusive free trials from November 2025 to February 2026, and an estimated $100 billion in annual global losses from refund abuse. AI companies are disproportionately affected due to compute costs tied to usage and reliance on free trials for customer acquisition. Traditional prevention methods like blocking virtual cards no longer work effectively. Stripe is rolling out new Radar features to address each fraud type, including a 90%-accurate free trial abuse predictor and early-access programs for account abuse and refund abuse detection.

Analyzing first-party fraud trends: Account, free trial, and refund abuse

Account abuse is especially costly for AI companies, where expensive compute costs are tied directly to usage

Free trial abuse is accelerating, driven by AI companies and the legitimate use of virtual cards

Refund abuse costs businesses worldwide $100 billion each year