According to Moonton’s official 2023 security report, the account blocking rate for top-ups through unofficial means is as high as 12.7%, 42 times the rate for official means (0.3%), of which third-party filling services are responsible for 83% of the total blocked (sample size 1.2 million). Normal cases such as the 2022 large blocking of Indonesian players, for abnormal speed of diamond arrivals (normal payment link 3-5 seconds, black production tools can be minimized to 0.8 seconds), over 45,000 accounts were blocked within one day (data source: mlbb top up Southeast Asia operation team announcement). Payment link analysis shows that the probability of starting risk control via Apple AppStore top-up is significantly less (0.7%) than Google Play (1.2%), due to the stronger payment voucher encryption process in iOS (256-bit AES vs 128-bit AES).
Illegal activities of third-party charging platforms (18% market share) are such as price arbitrage (such as the fee charged by the Brazilian server being 34% lower than the official fee), credit card chargeback (higher than 9% chargeback ratio), etc. The “Diamant Noir” black market gang scandal exposed by the Vietnamese police in 2023 means that The marginal cost of taking advantage of the difference in exchange rate is merely 22% of the official rate, which leads Moonton to lose only an estimated $3.8 million for a quarter (e.g., VNExpress news report). Technical surveillance showed that high-frequency top-up behavior (such as five consecutive 6480 diamonds purchases in an hour) would trigger real-time interception by the TP Anti-Cheat system with a false seal rate of below 0.05% (95% confidence interval).
72.4% of the suspended accounts have abnormal device fingerprints (on average 3.2 devices per month) and recharge times are concentrated at 2-4 am Beijing time (61% of the illegal transactions), which is significantly different from the normal user peak recharge time (8-10 PM) (standard deviation σ=2.7 hours). Refund dispute data shows 54% success rate in account unblocking through Facebook platforms is 18 percentage points higher than the official website work order but processing takes 7-14 days (2023 player community survey data). It should be noted that new “payment link fingerprint” technology launched in 2024 will increase the correct rate of black deposit identification to 99.1% through the connection between the device MAC address and payment account hash value (Moonton Technical White Paper).
The economic model estimates that each illegal account shut down can prevent mlbb top up from losing about $87 (the estimate is made on the basis of user life cycle value and anti-plug-in operating costs). In the “Project SHIELD” special governance in 2023, the system examines 2.3 million orders per day, and the recovery rate of blocked accounts’ diamonds is 92.3% (abnormal order traceability period ≤72 hours). The key to players’ risk-aversion strategy is to keep the refill frequency ≤3 times/day, the amount of single payment ≤6480 diamonds, and pay from a bound account for over 180 days (studies show that such accounts have 96% lower chance of blocking).