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I had no idea how common return fraud was until my boyfriend took a job at a big home supply store. Suddenly, we had a new game: sharing the most outrageous headlines about fraudsters. “Home Depot lost $5.5 million by issuing $900 refunds for a single purchase more than 6,000 times,” from 2023, is still my personal favorite. But you can’t forget the guy who, in a different scam, was charged with stealing and returning doors – just doors! – to the tune of $300,000.
That kind of flagrant abuse is one reason the era of easy returns is fading fast. Over the past year, many retailers have quietly made it harder or pricier to return items, and most shoppers won’t notice until they’re already stuck in the process. Say, for example, after Black Friday shopping.
Lauren Beitelspacher, a professor of marketing at Babson College, explains what’s driving the shift and why consumers should care. While returns feel routine to shoppers, to retailers they require a costly system of shipping, inspecting and storing rejected items – not to mention the growing expense of fraud prevention.
But while many retailers have imposed new, stricter return policies, they generally haven’t publicized the changes. So this Black Friday, shoppers should be on the lookout.
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Easy-return policies from the Covid-19 era have reshaped retail.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Lauren Beitelspacher, Babson College
During the pandemic, retailers used generous return policies to win over shoppers. Now, those policies are costing them billions – prompting a widespread rethink.
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Kathleen DuVal, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Shannon Toll, University of Dayton
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