Buy it. Wear it once. Return it. Sound familiar?
The National Retail Federation says retailers lost over $100 billion to return fraud last year alone.
And now retailers are fighting back, tracking your returns and banning customers who return too much.
And it’s not just online buyers getting caught. On TikTok, people are stunned that a store they’d shopped at for years cut them off.
Most people have no idea this tracking exists.
Software builds a profile of your return history. Flagging patterns like wardrobing or wearing it once and returning it.
Bracketing, buying multiple sizes and returning most of them, or repeatedly returning without a receipt.
So how do you avoid getting flagged? Keep your receipts. Know each store’s return policy before you buy. Don’t wear something just to return it. And don’t push the return window to the last possible day, every single time; that pattern alone can get you noticed.
Because the days of returning anything, anytime, no questions asked? Those may be over.
And if you shop online a lot, experts say your return history follows you. Some retailers share data with third-party services that track serial returners across multiple stores. So, a pattern at one retailer could affect how you’re treated at another.