How to Reduce Fake COD Orders in Bangladesh: Confirmation Calls, Advance Delivery Charges and Fraud Checks

In Bangladesh, an order on your Facebook page or online store is not yet a sale. Many orders go out cash on delivery, the rider arrives, and the customer doesn’t pick up the phone — or turns the parcel away at the door. In its merchant guide of 11 August 2026, Pathao Courier calls fake COD orders the most common type of courier fraud in Bangladesh, especially during promotions and seasonal sales.

The loss is more than one missed sale. The ad money is already spent, the parcel has been packed, the courier has made the trip, and often there is a return charge on top. Pathao notes that when a parcel is returned, merchants often pay for both the outbound delivery and the return. Steadfast’s business page says the same in its own words: if the customer refuses the parcel, it comes back on the same network, and return charges apply separately.

There are no made-up percentages in this guide. The goal is practical: which orders to confirm before you ship, which to put on hold, and which customers to ask for the delivery charge in advance.

Many people take “fake order” to mean prank orders. In practice, most of the damage comes from a few other patterns:

• The customer placed the order, then stops answering the phone — or refuses the parcel when the rider arrives
• The address is incomplete or wrong, so the parcel can’t be handed over
• The same number orders from different shops and keeps refusing delivery — Pathao calls these Serial Return Customers
• Orders from new, temporary or borrowed numbers with no delivery history

Not every return is fraud. The rider may not have called, or the product may have arrived late or in the wrong size. The aim is to stop suspicious orders, not to punish genuine customers. A cancelled order costs almost nothing; a returned parcel costs courier charges in both directions, packing, time and ad spend. So don’t ship an order that hasn’t been confirmed. To put a number on it for your own shop, try our free COD return cost calculator.

The most useful step against fake orders is within reach of almost every shop: get the customer’s confirmation before the parcel goes to the courier. Pathao recommends calling before you ship high-value orders. In Bangladesh’s COD market many merchants call on every new order, because one call does three jobs: it checks the person is really there, that there’s no misunderstanding about the total, and that the address is clear enough for a rider to find. If the address is thin, ask for a landmark. If the customer says “no” on the call, the parcel never leaves your shop.

When order volume is high, you can send a summary by SMS or Messenger and ask the customer to reply “confirm”. But for numbers that don’t reply, incomplete addresses or risky orders, there is no substitute for a call. Running calls and messages together works best.

When these calls live on separate SIMs and paper notebooks, the record gets lost: who called, who missed, what the customer said. With an integrated call center tied to the order, agents call from the order screen and the outcome stays next to the order. If nobody answers, don’t delete the order. Try once or twice more at different times and leave a message on Messenger or SMS. If there is still no response, put the order on hold — don’t book the courier.

Keep the script short. In the first 20 seconds, the shop name, the product, the total amount and the address should all be clear. The customer should never hear a different amount from the rider — that is often the moment a parcel gets refused.

If the customer hesitates about the price, size or date, don’t push for a “confirm”. Cancelling or changing the order now costs almost nothing; a return later costs you in both directions.

Explain the reason politely and genuine customers usually understand. Someone who never meant to receive the order won’t send even this small amount. Brief your agents: if a customer says “I didn’t order this”, don’t argue — cancel politely and leave a note; and if the address is thin, don’t book a courier without the house or road, the thana and a landmark.

Asking every customer to pay in advance can cost you genuine buyers too. Many people want the reassurance of cash on delivery, especially from a new page. So use the advance charge according to risk rather than as a default. This isn’t a fixed rule — adjust it to your own products and areas:

Asking for the full product price in advance is not the same as asking only for the delivery charge. The delivery charge shows that the customer really wants the order, and it means the courier cost isn’t a total loss if the parcel comes back. For custom or made-to-order products, a larger advance can be reasonable. When the payment arrives, write the Transaction ID in the order note and match it against the number, and only then book the courier. Don’t treat a screenshot without an ID as final proof.

Couriers keep a record of every parcel against the customer’s number, and whether it was delivered or returned. Looking up that history before you decide is what many merchants call a “fraud check”. The name is a little harsh — one return isn’t always fraud — but in COD it answers the question you actually care about: how often parcels to this number ended with the cash collected.

Start with the merchant panel of the network your parcel will go through:

• In the Pathao Merchant Panel, you can enter a phone number to see the delivery, cancellation and return pattern on Pathao’s network. Pathao says it is built into the panel, with no separate software or extra subscription.
• Steadfast’s panel and merchant app have a Delivery Risk Check: enter the number to see how many parcels that buyer took, and how many they returned.

One courier’s history isn’t the full picture. Pathao’s checker shows Pathao’s network; Steadfast’s shows Steadfast’s. Check with the courier you’ll ship with, and cross-check another panel if you’re unsure. If you use a third-party checker, keep the final decision on your own panels, calls and notes — and never give your login details to an unknown tool.

No courier has officially set a success rate that counts as “safe”. One delivery and one return could be a one-off; repeated returns are a pattern. No history doesn’t mean you should reject the order — a new customer won’t have any. In that case, call, verify the address, and consider an advance charge on high-value or distant orders. The check isn’t for scaring customers at checkout: let the order come in, then check before you ship.

Couriers also differ on delivery charges, COD fees, return charges and payout cycles. We compared what each courier lists on its own website in Pathao vs Steadfast vs RedX (in Bangla, with an English summary).

A courier checker shows that network’s history across other shops. You need your own record too. For numbers that kept returning your parcels even after confirming, gave a fake address, or said “I didn’t order this”, keep the number, the address and the reason in one place — so an agent doesn’t ship to them again without knowing.

One return doesn’t mean a permanent block. If the cause was a delay, a rider who couldn’t find the address, or a problem with the product, you’ll lose good buyers. Read the note before you block; if the fault was yours, fix the process. When a blocked number orders again, don’t quietly ignore it — decide: ship only with an advance, or decline the order. To keep the decision the same across the team, keep the list in your order system’s notes or tags, not in someone’s personal notebook. Several large orders from one number in a short time, or different names at the same address, are also worth one more check before you ship.

Fake orders don’t always start with the customer. Some offers don’t state the price clearly, some creatives show one product while another gets delivered, and some campaigns reach people who order but don’t want the parcel. Blocking numbers alone won’t show you where the problem starts.

So look at returns by channel too: which ad, which page, which area or which courier sends the most parcels back. In Bangladesh’s COD market, orders placed and orders delivered with the cash collected are not the same thing. A campaign that brings cheap orders but lots of returns can look profitable — count by delivered orders and the picture can flip. When this sits on the same record, you quickly see which offer to stop, where to ask for more advance charges, and which courier is falling behind.

To see what returns cost you each month, plug your own numbers into the COD return cost calculator — it runs in your browser and saves nothing.

There’s no need to switch on every rule at once and confuse the team. A practical order:

1. 1As soon as an order arrives, check the name, the 11-digit mobile number starting with 01, and an address with house, area and thana.
2. 2Look up the fraud or delivery history in the panel of the courier you’ll ship with, and check the number against your own block list.
3. 3Make the confirmation call or send the message. If the order isn’t confirmed, don’t ship it.
4. 4On risky orders, take only the delivery charge in advance via bKash or Nagad, match the Transaction ID, then book the courier.
5. 5Keep a photo or short video of the parcel when you pack it. Pathao advises that this proof helps in disputes such as product swaps.
6. 6After delivery or return, write a note on the order. Add numbers that keep returning parcels to your list.
7. 7At the end of the week, look at returns by campaign, area and courier, and adjust your policy a little based on what you find.

For a good customer, this rarely feels like more than one short call. On risky orders, your costs come down.

You can run every step above with notebooks, SIMs and separate courier panels. The trouble starts when orders, calls and return records live in different places. EcomDrive tries to bring these steps into one system for ecommerce operations in Bangladesh.

The product tour shows orders from your website, Shopify, WooCommerce, Facebook page, Messenger and WhatsApp landing in one queue, with duplicate and suspicious orders identified before shipping. The solutions page explains that fake-order and risk signals are surfaced before dispatch, and that agents can call in one click from the order screen — with the order history, address and previous notes alongside. For orders from a Facebook page, see Facebook page order management (in Bangla, with an English summary).

The integrated call center has a softphone, routing, call groups and recording. How many times each agent tried, how long they talked, how many orders were confirmed, and which calls were missed or ignored are measured automatically. An AI agent transcribes and analyses calls, and a signal on whether the script was followed goes to the manager. When an order is confirmed, stock is reserved. The call center is a separate add-on that can be switched on later on any plan. The difference is explained in Traditional Call Center vs EcomDrive Integrated Call Center. To see step by step how confirmation calls run from the order screen, see order confirmation calls (in Bangla, with an English summary).

Performance and RTO for several couriers — including Pathao, Steadfast, RedX, Paperfly, Carrybee and eCourier — can be viewed side by side. When data from Meta, Google Ads and TikTok is matched with confirmation and delivery outcomes, you can see which campaigns bring delivered revenue and which ones push returns up, without a separate spreadsheet.

EcomDrive is not a replacement for a courier’s own fraud checker, and bKash or Nagad payments go to your own number. It is the operations layer where calls, notes, risk signals, courier handover and return records sit on one customer record. Plans start from ৳500/month. To check it against your own order volume and call flow, book a demo.