Because there is apparently no limit to the amount of effort someone will put in to being dishonest, scammers are constantly evolving their tricks. For example, it’s no longer enough for someone to just steal your credit card number to go on a shopping spree. Now they have to involve you, by tricking you into actually shipping the fraudulent purchase on to them. [More]
return fraud
Scammers Buy Stuff With Your Card, Then Trick You Into ‘Returning’ Items To Them
By 4.24.17 — Updated: 4.26.17
Man Stole $11,000 In Stuff From Home Depot, Then Returned It All For Refunds
By 4.18.17
Most practitioners of the “hot exchange” — the retail grift where a fraudster steals an item then “returns” it to the store for a refund — are happy to chisel away a criminal living, earning $50 here, $100 there. But one Texas man was thinking big when he stole — and then returned — more than $11,000 from Home Depot stores. [More]
Three Return Scams Retailers Will Be Looking For This Holiday Season
By 11.23.16
We’ve barely waded into the hectic holiday shopping season, but retailers are already preparing for a rush of returns after the big day — and the scams that inevitably go along with them. [More]
Was I Wrong To Profit From Returning An Online Purchase To Walmart?
By 12.29.11
A frequent reader who we’ll call M. wrote in to offer his post-holiday moral dilemma. Well, it’s not so much a dilemma, since he he’s already done it. He bought a Microsoft Kinect controller online, but wanted to return it after the holidays were over. Too lazy to package the controller and mail it back, he instead took it to his local Walmart and returned it for store credit. $50 more than he originally paid for the device. [More]
Home Depot Sells You A Used Battery Pack, Manages Not To Accuse You Of Fraud
By 11.10.08
Here’s a happy story from someone who bought a “Box of Crap” (this is what we call a box that looks new, but contains the wrong item or a used item, due to return fraud). Instead of accusing reader Ryan of some sort of crime, Home Depot simply issued him a gift card. Hooray!
