Retailers are losing $100 billion a year from return fraud, bots and coupon stacking, study says


  • Global Moderator

    Their definition of ‘coupon stacking’ is wrong. Someone creating multiple accounts via email to use the same ‘promo’ code to be a new customer again multiple times is not stacking. Stacking is using multiple coupons/offers on one order that can double dip on products, which typically is NOT fraud (ie, RA store coupon and Manu on same item). Obviously whoever wrote this article has no clue.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/14/retailers-are-losing-100-billion-a-year-from-fraud-riskified.html


  • administrators

    For the last three years, Robert has used a different email address to take advantage of a Black Friday Hulu promotion that most recently offered new customers a yearlong subscription for just $1.99 a month instead of the usual $7.99 monthly cost.

    Why are they giving away my secrets ⁉

    In another case, a top pet supply company based in the U.S. lost $3.5 million in the first quarter of 2023 alone after a small group of serial fraudsters exploited a promotion code for a 35% to 50% off discount.

    Wonder if this was Pet Supplies Plus? They had 5 digit codes with nice discounts that were easily foundable online, but earlier this year switched to one time longer codes that are one time use.


  • administrators

    @mistercheap said in Retailers are losing $100 billion a year from return fraud, bots and coupon stacking, study says:

    Their definition of ‘coupon stacking’ is wrong. Someone creating multiple accounts via email to use the same ‘promo’ code to be a new customer again multiple times is not stacking. Stacking is using multiple coupons/offers on one order that can double dip on products, which typically is NOT fraud (ie, RA store coupon and Manu on same item). Obviously whoever wrote this article has no clue.

    To be fair while they didn’t describe coupon stacking, it is possible coupon stacking is one of the things costing them money. And for example for things like CVS glitches where it would accept a CVS coupon (which can be manufacturer funded) and a manufacturer coupon on the same item, could be losing them a lot of money.

    And you know RA is losing a ton of money with all the people rolling BC.


  • Global Moderator

    @dangeruss said in Retailers are losing $100 billion a year from return fraud, bots and coupon stacking, study says:

    @mistercheap said in Retailers are losing $100 billion a year from return fraud, bots and coupon stacking, study says:

    Their definition of ‘coupon stacking’ is wrong. Someone creating multiple accounts via email to use the same ‘promo’ code to be a new customer again multiple times is not stacking. Stacking is using multiple coupons/offers on one order that can double dip on products, which typically is NOT fraud (ie, RA store coupon and Manu on same item). Obviously whoever wrote this article has no clue.

    To be fair while they didn’t describe coupon stacking, it is possible coupon stacking is one of the things costing them money. And for example for things like CVS glitches where it would accept a CVS coupon (which can be manufacturer funded) and a manufacturer coupon on the same item, could be losing them a lot of money.

    And you know RA is losing a ton of money with all the people rolling BC.

    Yes, but the stacking of Q’s at RA (L2C, $15bc/$50, $5/25, etc) is perfectly legit on their POS system. Their losing money from it, if the case, is their own doing, but it isn’t fraud related.

    As for CVS, I’ve seen them rip-off customers left and right, not giving extra bucks when they were due on online orders, expiring ECB’s prior to expiration, etc. And their customer service by phone sucks IMO.

    So a here and there glitch, again isn’t fraud if their system is wrongly programmed. If you went in and hacked their system to make something less money, that’s a different story.

    Coupon fraud is what they should have said, their article implies all coupon stacking is fraudulent which it is not.


  • 500 Club

    I question this number and so the article.

    Stores lost an estimated $86.6 billion to retail theft in 2022; projections indicate that in 2025, retail theft may cost stores over $115 billion. Retailers lost as much as $94.5 billion in gross revenue to theft in 2021, up 4.07% year-over-year (YoY). 58% of organized retail crime is cargo theft. Apr 13, 2023


 

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