Refund abuse hits new heights for online marketplaces


Refund abuse hits new heights for online marketplaces

Online marketplaces are experiencing a significant rise in refund abuse costing the industry huge amounts of money. Refund abuse, where customers overuse a company’s refund policy to the point of unprofitability, is rising across the board in the online marketplace world. Food delivery companies are particularly feeling the pinch, with 57 per cent noticing an uplift in the past 12 months. 48 per cent of ride-hailing app companies and 44 per cent of goods and services companies have also seen a noticeable increase.

These rises have coincided with the pandemic where merchants sought to soften returns policies and offer contactless delivery to encourage sales. Merchants then quickly found it difficult to track successful deliveries and genuine returns.

These findings are from fraud detection and payment acceptance specialist Ravelin in its latest report entitled Online marketplace: fraud trends 2021. The report draws on research from more than 1,000 fraud professionals working in large online merchant businesses around the world.

Even pre-pandemic, refund abuse proved to be a problem for online retailers. ASOS actively sought to blacklist serial returners in 2019, who cost the retail industry £60 billion each year.

But the pandemic has provided the impetus for online marketplaces specifically to address the issue, as Martin Sweeney, CEO, Ravelin, explains: “While refund abuse isn’t always fraud as such, it’s something that online marketplaces — and eCommerce in general — should treat just as seriously. As our research has shown, it’s one of the fastest-growing hits to profitability.

“I sympathise with the challenge facing the online marketplace world. This is a relatively young industry, where competition is tough and every app has to offer the best deals and the easiest returns policies. So, it’s a fine balance to strike between offering convenience and protecting profitability.”

While abuse is on the rise over the past 12 months, so too are other serious and costly forms of fraud. 40 per cent of online marketplaces have suffered a rise in online payment fraud. 48 per cent have also seen an increase in account takeover, where online logins fall into the hands of cybercriminals who then make fraudulent purchases. And 41% have seen an increase in friendly fraud, where customers wrongly request a chargeback from their bank after making a purchase.

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