{"id":18686,"date":"2014-12-25T02:25:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T10:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/?p=18686"},"modified":"2014-12-25T02:25:51","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T10:25:51","slug":"holiday-return-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/holiday-return-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Return Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/images\/freturn.jpg\" alt=\"img\" width=\"650\" height=\"339\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Are you ready to have some fun returning a gift that really didn&#8217;t want for Christmas? Most of us are honest, forthright citizens seeking refunds on holiday purchases we&#8217;d like to return. According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/visit\/super-saturday-shopping.html\">National Retail Federation<\/a> 2014 Return Fraud Survey of loss prevention executives at 60 retail companies representing grocery, department, discount, specialty and small retailers, the industry will lose $3.8 billion to return fraud this holiday season alone, and an estimated $10.9 billion to return fraud this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RETAILER FRAUD STATISTICS<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>92.7% of retailers polled say they have experienced the return of stolen merchandise in the last year.<\/li>\n<li>78.2% say they have experienced return fraud through returns by organized retail crime groups.<\/li>\n<li>18.2%\u00a0see an\u00a0increase in\u00a0return fraud instances with e-receipts: the survey found more retailers this year said they have experienced return fraud with the use of e-receipts.<\/li>\n<li>81.8%\u00a0have experienced the return of merchandise purchased with fraudulent or stolen payment methods.<\/li>\n<li>25.5% have witnessed fraudulent returns using counterfeit receipts, including\u00a0employee return fraud or collusion with external sources.<\/li>\n<li>72.7%\u00a0of retailers are victims of\u00a0wardrobing, or the return of used, non-defective merchandise such as special occasion apparel and certain electronics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TIPS FOR RETURNING HOLIDAY MERCHANDISE<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Read receipt or detail of return policies online before heading to brick &amp; mortar store. 87% polled said they allow customers to return merchandise bought online to their brick-and-mortar stores.<\/li>\n<li>Bring your ID. Retailers are requiring identification to help curb fraud.<\/li>\n<li>Hesitate before you open the boxed gift. Restocking fees can cause you to lose 15% of the cost of an item.<\/li>\n<li>Check store policies about returning software, electronics and similar gifts before you get in line and wait.<\/li>\n<li>Bring documentation about store policies and be prepared to show it in order to\u00a0get your money back.<\/li>\n<li>Pay attention to time limits for returns. Many have a Dec. 31 return policy on Christmas gifts purchased in November &amp; December.<\/li>\n<li>Re-gift on items that you can&#8217;t return and don&#8217;t want such as gift cards to restaurants and retail stores.<\/li>\n<li>Do the math on return merchandise requiring shipping costs to be sure you are not losing money.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you ready to have some fun returning a gift that really didn&#8217;t want for Christmas? Most of us are honest, forthright citizens seeking refunds on holiday purchases we&#8217;d like to return. According to the National Retail Federation 2014 Return Fraud Survey of loss prevention executives at 60 retail companies representing grocery, department, discount, specialty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}