As if life wasn't hard enough - SCAMMERS SELLING GUIDES ON HOW TO SCAM FREE GOODS :-(

Refund racket hitting online retailers

Organised criminals are offering guides on how to rip off shopping websites that allow goods to be returned free of charge

, Consumer Affairs Editor

Sunday May 22 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Gangs manipulate retailers into giving them a refund, often claiming that items were not delivered

Retailers are facing a barrage of fraudulent returns from “professional refunders” who sell guides on the internet, including a list of easy targets.

Gangs are using a variety of techniques to manipulate retailers into giving them a refund, a replacement or both. A practice that was once merely a minor nuisance from an occasional cheating customer is being used by organised criminals who have gained detailed knowledge of each merchant’s systems and procedures, according to academics.

The most common technique involves claiming the goods were not delivered by the courier or that they arrived but at least one item was missing. However, the increase in cameras and monitoring used in packing factories and by couriers is making this harder. A new and more elaborate ruse involves claiming a refund and pretending to return the goods in the post while keeping hold of them to sell.

This technique sometimes involves sending back a package that weighs the same as the original but without the expensive item inside. In some cases, warehouses scan the barcode on the outside of the box and a refund is issued before it is actually opened, by which point the criminals will have received the money and disappeared.

The author of one ebook guide to return fraud claimed they had carried out 8,000 returns, including 500 for themselves and 7,500 as an agent for clients. “Refunding has huge potential. There are so many people making a living doing refunds,” they said.

Describing the crime as a “long-term business”, it provides detailed information on several methods of fraud, such as tampering with tracking labels, using fraudulent details and exploiting automated customer service systems.

The crime is putting pressure on shops at a time when a third of fashion items bought online are returned. Each return costs about £20 in shipping, storage, repackaging and discounting, according to the returns management company NShift. Last week, Zara announced it would charge buyers for some returns, joining others Next, Uniqlo and others.

Online guides sold for up to £277 instruct customers on how best to navigate each retailer’s return procedure, including entering certain key phrases when talking to shops’ automated chatbots to prompt an instant refund.

Customers can even hire refunders to advise them on what to buy from where and then call customer service on their behalf to secure the refund. They receive a percentage of the refund, sometimes as much as 20 per cent. The fraudsters have spreadsheets listing store return policies, the carriers and types of tracking they use and which kinds of requests work best. One retailer said it was working with police to tackle professional refunders and putting “robust checks” in place to deal with the problem.

Dr Regina Frei, an associate professor of operations and supply chain management at Southampton Business School, who works with retailers and police to study return fraud, said: “Organised crime has taken return fraud to a new level. The pandemic seems to have given those fraudsters time to get organised and develop this [technique].

“It can involve fake receipts and tracking ID numbers, for example, and people who keep changing their addresses and phone numbers to avoid being identified. It is shocking. Some retailers are starting to realise that they need to find ways to work with law enforcement agencies, as organised crime has grown a lot during the pandemic.” Frei said this kind of crime had implications for all shoppers. “The more people return, the more we have to pay for it,” she said.

A video on YouTube advertising one e-book guide on how to commit refund fraud boasted: “Want the PlayStation 5, the newest MacBook Pro or even a Rolex, but you don’t have the money to buy one? [This] refunding ebook will teach you how to get all the items for free.”

Claiming that the guide could help users “make huge profit within a very short time frame”, it added: “Refunding is technically illegal, so you have to play it safe. Companies are aware of refunding, but there is nothing they can do to stop it. They have to provide good support to every customer, and bad word of mouth can ruin their profits. So it is better to have every customer happy.”

Another website published a list of 50 stores’ “safe limits” — the point at which it said an investigation into a suspicious refund was unlikely — as well as the number of times you could claim for a refund without being flagged as a suspect.

Dr Adrian Beck, emeritus professor of criminology at Leicester University, who is conducting research into shop losses, said: “The challenge retailers like Amazon have is they will be getting thousands of items coming back every day and there is probably a lag between when it gets processed and somebody physically unpacking it and, in the meantime, the refund payment has happened.

“Some returns centres are starting to use the equivalent of body scanning technology or x-ray technology to try and identify what’s in a package that’s been returned to see whether it is a brick when it should be an iPhone, for example. So they’ve clearly got concerns about this.

“It has become much harder to do card fraud and, as such, criminals are trying to find other ways to get the goods for free.”