∧pex

Trust tiers

Every partner on the network sits in one of three tiers: NEW, TRUSTED, or VERIFIED. Tier drives how much they can cash out, how long their commission is held in reserve, what KYC Apex requires, and whether they get the Verified Partner badge in the marketplace.

The design is intentionally conservative. Fresh partners are treated as unknown until proven; tier is earned through time + identity + interview, not by paying a fee.

Tier table

GateNEWTRUSTEDVERIFIED
Per-payout auto$0 (manual only)$1,000$10,000
Per-payout manual$100$2,000$25,000
Daily cap$100$2,000$7,500
Weekly cap$500$10,000$35,000
Monthly cap$1,000$25,000$100,000
Holdback25% for 90 days15% for 60 days5% for 30 days
First-payout hold90 days00
Phone verifiedoptionalrequiredrequired
Stripe Identityoptionalrequiredrequired
Phone interview—requiredrequired
Video interview——required
Verified badge in marketplace——yes

How tiers are assigned

A deterministic evaluator (calculateTrustTier) runs on every conversion approval + payout completion. Inputs:

  • Days since profile creation (tenure)
  • Lifetime earned USD (all merchants)
  • Lifetime paid USD
  • Count of clean payouts (no chargeback in holdback window)
  • Chargeback rate across all merchants
  • Substantiated fraud cases in last 180d + 90d
  • Phone + Stripe Identity + phone interview + video interview flags
  • Optional Fraud Ops fastForwardToTier (bypasses tenure gate only)

Any unmet gate for a target tier drops the partner to the highest tier where all gates pass, with the reason exposed for Fraud Ops visibility.

Tenure + volume thresholds

For automatic tier progression:

  • TRUSTED: 180 days tenure + 20 clean payouts + $5,000 lifetime + under 1% chargebacks + KYC + phone interview
  • VERIFIED: 365 days tenure + $25,000 lifetime + under 0.5% chargebacks + 0 substantiated fraud in 180d + video interview with recording consent

These are the defaults — they're enforced by the tier engine and tested to spec. Fraud Ops can fast-forward via interview regardless of tenure.

Fast-forward path

Legitimate partners shouldn't have to wait 6 months to unlock higher caps. A passed phone interview fast-forwards NEW → TRUSTED. A passed video interview (with recording consent) fast-forwards TRUSTED → VERIFIED.

Fraud Ops schedules + records interviews from /admin/fraud-ops/interviews. Pass triggers the tier bump automatically, fires a partner_decision_rendered email, and surfaces the change on the partner's dashboard within minutes.

Tier regression

  • One substantiated fraud case in last 90 days → force to NEW (until the 90-day window elapses)
  • Any substantiated fraud in last 180 days → blocks VERIFIED promotion
  • trustTierFrozenUntil in the future → partner is frozen at frozenAtTier (Fraud Ops uses this to quarantine without a full ban)

Merchant vouch

A merchant who knows a partner off-platform can vouch for them — bumping their tier one level for 60 days. This is NOT free: the merchant accepts indemnity for any fraud during the vouched window.

await apex.vouchForPartner("prof_sarah", {
  indemnityAcknowledged: true,
  reason: "10-year working relationship",
});

Fraud during a vouched window debits the merchant's account for any clawback the reserve can't cover. Used sparingly.

Related

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