Three Spanish teenagers exploited Amazon’s return policy to enrich themselves by almost 350,000 euros. They have now been convicted and must pay a fine.
Between 2017 and 2019, three teenagers in Spain developed a method to defraud Amazon. However, Amazon caught on to the three fraudsters, and now they must serve 1 year in prison.
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Fraudsters exploit return policy to defraud Amazon
What exactly did the fraudsters do? The three fraudsters listed products on other retail sites. When someone purchased the product from them, the fraudsters ordered the desired product from Amazon. Our colleagues from Jeuxvideo.com report this.
In the next step, they initiated the return procedure for the product to Amazon by submitting an online request, and the post sent off a package. This is where the fraudsters’ trick came into play:
The package, which used the barcode provided by Amazon for returns, contained other cheap items like pens, marbles, and other inexpensive products to maintain a similar weight to the original product. At the same time, they presumably hoped that Amazon would not check the contents of the package.
This type of fraud, sending back the wrong contents, happens repeatedly. And among these frauds, it is often not Amazon that suffers, but the customer who ends up with a package containing incorrect items. Like a father who ends up in a dilemma because he did not receive a graphics card.
According to the information available, they repeated this action more than 200 times during the mentioned period (2017 – 2019) and generated almost 350,000 euros with the trick. Part of the sum was “earned” in digital cryptocurrencies.
One year in prison and a fine for the perpetrators
How did the case turn out? Amazon caught the fraudsters. The three teenagers were sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 1,080 euros. They must also repay the illegally earned amount.
Other fraudsters are also active on Amazon, looking to take people’s hard-earned money. One user didn’t want to miss out on the fun and “visited” a scam company. Because it has its headquarters right at his doorstep:
