How to become a Professional Refunder

Today, most major online retailers are happy to give refunds for any reason. Something doesn't fit? Decided you don't like it? Well - as long as you're able to send the product back - you'll probably get given a refund.

But what if there was a way to game the system? Buy anything, then get the money given back? Enter the ecommerce market's worst enemy: the professional refunder.

To profit from a refund, you’d need to be able to keep whatever you bought, whilst gaining either a replacement (known as ‘double dipping’ in the biz), or be fully financially compensated.

Especially since the pandemic, online retailers have become increasingly lax with their refunds: Target and Walmart stated they wouldn’t be accepting returns at all, and Amazon told customers not to even bother returning a product, if it was £10 or less.

So, sure, you could buy a biro and send it back for a full refund. But where’s the fun in that? What about something a bit bigger?

Let’s see how you’d get a macbook refunded, by an expert:

1. You buy a macbook for £1000
2. You go to a refunder and agree on a % cut that they take (usually between 30 and 50%)
3. They get it refunded (often logging into your account to do so,), returning £650 to you and pocketing £350 for the trouble
4. You get a macbook for £350.

Below is a typical refunder’s self-promo, demonstrating their own experience and skills. As this is a somewhat illegal activity — falling under the realm of refund fraud — it’s vital to emphasise how “you are never at risk of legal issues!”.

Well, sure, let’s ignore how this harms legitimate, hard-working online sellers for a minute.

How do these professional refunders guarantee their own success?

Well, there’s a handful of methods seen in circulation. From the lowest level of escalation to the highest:

• Blood & mould

As the goal is to avoid returning an item, then the easiest way is to give a reason for why you can’t possibly handle the opened package.

For this goal, a common tactic is to ‘find’ questionable substances on your product. If this is tech, then finding blood on the package/product is surprisingly commonplace; or, for food, sometimes this can be reported as mould and insects such as maggots.

Doctoring or faking the evidence is relatively easy, too, and often requires no further escalation than with the customer service agent on the other end of the phone. Usually, the threat of a bad review is enough to scare on online seller into submission - which many professional refunders are not afraid to follow up with.

• Substance leak

Another common method is to report hazardous breakage — monitor capacitor leakage, or battery acid leakage, as examples, both would make a product legally un-shippable. This is where the professional fraudster’s experience is of value, as pictures and even video can be doctored, edited, or simply reused, to display an apparent fault.

• PEB (Partial Empty Box)

A now-infamous method is that of the Partially Empty Box. This technique, necessary when tracked shipping has been used, entails the claimant stating that, yes, the package arrived, but was missing components. As this is also easier to prove than a ‘damage’ claim, it’s a popular method for clothing and tech refund frauds.

• Fake ID Tracking Numbers

One of the most powerful tools in the refund scammer’s arsenal: the Fake ID Tracking Number. Whereas the other methods have relied on dodging out of the responsibility of sending products back, this fraudster (on the surface) agrees to.

However, they don't send the product at all — rather, an empty box (sometimes weighted properly, if it’s a high-value item). Then, they doctor the shipping address label with a deliberately incorrect address. When they inform the Ebay or amazon seller that it’s been sent, it appears correct to the unsuspecting eye; the shipping company will eventually update the package status as delivered.

This is particularly potent when combined with a stealthy approach: some refunders brag about how they’ll doctor the label, send it off, wait for two weeks, then immediately go through the escalation steps with Ebay or Amazon — landing themselves a almost-instantaneous refund.

• Police/crime IDs.

The most extreme method of ‘friendly’ fraud: the refunder opens a fake crime report in your name, claiming that the package has been stolen. With the rise of ‘porch pirates’ in both the US and UK, this is not necessarily suspicious, either. Though this is a highly potent strategy, it enmeshes the refunder under far harsher penalties, should they be caught at any point. Furthermore, this tactic is inherently less abusable, as continuously opening up new petty theft cases begins to get suspicious.

Is there much risk of getting caught for refund fraud? Not really.

Generally, committing returns fraud runs the risk of your account getting put under review and locked. This occurs when you’ve developed a pattern of returning lots of packages on the bounce. Asos is particularly well-known for this, being apparently very trigger-happy after one or two refunds.

Another risk that your account faces when dealing with professional refunders is your details getting stolen. Most refunders will ask for access to your account shortly after you’ve purchased the product, which puts your virtual assets- such as password, email and card details — at risk. Admittedly, some refunders will be ‘legit’ — in that they don’t steal your info — but finding out which ones are safe is difficult, especially in such a grey area of online services.

Overall, returns fraud is — for mega-corporations such as Amazon — just the cost of doing business. For smaller stores that sell through ebay and Amazon, however, the loss of revenue from returns fraud can be heavy-hitting and incredibly upsetting. A lot of these larger ecommerce platforms side overwhelmingly with the consumer, meaning that sellers are left unsupported in their attempts to combat returns fraud.

Hell, this January saw roughly $9 billion wasted through fraudulent returns in the post-Christmas slump. January is a hard month for most online businesses, anyway: added pressure from greedy frausters may well be the last straw.