More and more people are ordering goods online. Online retailers' sales are booming. With the lack of a physical store—and the associated cost reductions—online prices are becoming increasingly difficult to undercut, even by brick-and-mortar competitors. However, online retailers are also experiencing severe setbacks.
According to the Statista Research Department, the misuse of refund channels was the most common form of fraud among surveyed online retailers worldwide in 2023. This fraud involves initiating technical refund procedures for the purchase prices paid. Either the receipt of the ordered goods is denied or a refund is requested without actually returning the goods. The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reported a comprehensive case in which a group of people allegedly even advertised these services in Germany in a chat session on the messenger service Telegram. This clique is accused of over 560 cases of gang-related and commercial fraud. The Telegram group called "GermanRefundCrew" was shut down by the German BKA in 2020.
In the list of criminal offenses or "swindles" of online retailers, refund fraud goes hand in hand with the internationally known "friendly fraud" or "chargeback fraud", in which the payment is canceled by credit institutions after the purchase.
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Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) im Artikel: Refund-Betrug im großen Stil (as of 10.2024)
Statista mit der Datenerhebung: Häufigste Arten von Betrug bei Online-Händlern weltweit im Jahr 2023 (as of 10.2024)
Magazin Wirtschaftswoche im Artikel: "Wenn statt des iPhones nur ein Häufchen Sand zurückgeschickt wird" (as of 10.2024)