Archived Return/Coupon Fraud?

[NPC]

I was curious if anyone deals with excessive return fraud in their stores? I've seen a few posts talking mostly about the coupon fraud happening at the Check Stands, but not much talking about the results of the successful scammers. You know, the ones that manage to find a newbie, not aware of the scam. Luckily our store is pretty decent about thwarting many scam attempts. The ones that do coupon a lot, seem to genuinely keep their products. (who knew that happened)

ANYWAY, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, essentially, their scam is, they buy in bulk, high priced items (razors, toothbrush heads, cosmetics, medications, certain toy brands, DVDs) and use high value coupons on them (I've seen some upwards of $10 off) and then they go to Guest Service to return said items without a receipt (ID Return). Or in some cases, they'll do a receipt look up with the gift card they used to purchase said items.

Now, as I've said, our store is good at stopping this from occurring at the Lanes, but we get LOTS of guests from other stores attempting to do suspicious returns. It's been especially prevalent again since the Reseller issue that just happened. Just last night, in about the span of 1 hour, I had 3 Guests (whom probably work together) come in with stuffed bags of merchandise, trying to return them.

Our AP team has been great at stopping these people, as it's obviously not a legitimate return. These were bags filled with easily hundreds if not a thousand dollars worth of toothbrush heads. We tell the guests that we're unable to return the items in that large of a quantity without a receipt, regardless if they have the card used to purchase them. (in some cases we return a limit of 4, if they're especially hostile) Otherwise, they either have to use a receipt, or return them at the ORIGINAL store of purchase. The reason for this is, when returning these products with a receipt look up, the coupons aren't detected, so the guest can return a $20 product for the full price, even though they may have paid only $5 for it.

So do any of your stores have this issue? How do you go about working around this? I know it's been especially hard on some Team Members because it conflicts with the "Yes Desk" policy, and every GSTL seems to go to the beat of a different drummer.

 

[TallAPGuy]

God, do we ever, and it seems there's nothing we can do to stop it. When the ETL-GE isn't there, pretty much everyone who works the service desk still goes by the $75 limit on no-receipt returns, but when she is there we have to just roll over and let them return the stuff unless we get lucky and they forgot to remove a security sticker from one product (one guy at the desk found a Safeway EAS tag on an Oral-B brush head so he denied the whole return).
We don't have as many people who are caught with coupons, as the GE has made it clear the cashiers are to accept all coupons, even photocopies.

 

[PinkZinnia]

We don't take large quantities of hba back without receipts. If the guest gets hostile, gs calls over gsa/gstl. Usually when the hostile guest sees us coming over they say - oh forget it, because they have dealt with all of us at the registers and at guest services before.. Not accepting fraud coupons or taking back fraud returns are probably the only things that we work together on. LOD's back us on that also. Everything else is a bumble f**k.

 

[queencat]

That's been happening to us lately. Our TPS guy transfered stores, and they haven't filled the position to my knowledge yet, and the leads have told me there's nothing we can do besides print out the receipt for all suspicious no receipt returns and deny two particular people returns as we've seen them in the parking lot trying to get peoples ID's (so instead they just grab random people and send them in- literally grab, I denied one of the peoples returns, she left, and returned dragging a teenage girl who had to be like 14 saying MY FRIEND'LL DO IT!! this was before we banned them though)

 

[Retail Girl]

We take it all back with a smile. If a guest calls corporate for us declining to attempt a return, then it will generate a hot alert, which goes to the GVP, DTL, and STL. Then the ETL-GE has to deal with all three of them, plus grovel to the guest and give them the damn world. And then the TM who declined it all and pissed off the guest and made the ETL deal with their three bosses gets coached.

At first it really sucked, but then we realized that if our boss', boss', boss', boss' wants Target to take the hit on all of this, and they get paid all this damn money for it, why should we care? And the not having to care and just doing it is incredibly freeing. Way less stress to just let it go.

 

[mrknownothing]

That's been happening to us lately. Our TPS guy transfered stores, and they haven't filled the position to my knowledge yet, and the leads have told me there's nothing we can do besides print out the receipt for all suspicious no receipt returns and deny two particular people returns as we've seen them in the parking lot trying to get peoples ID's (so instead they just grab random people and send them in- literally grab, I denied one of the peoples returns, she left, and returned dragging a teenage girl who had to be like 14 saying MY FRIEND'LL DO IT!! this was before we banned them though)

Wow. Sounds like the police need to be involved if all that is going on.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

http://www.thebreakroom.org/index.php?threads/angry-extreme-couponers.4462/

 

[HardlinesFour]

Our AP team has been great at stopping these people, as it's obviously not a legitimate return. These were bags filled with easily hundreds if not a thousand dollars worth of toothbrush heads.

Believe it or not, those toothbrush heads for sonicare and other brands, are some of the most stolen products, Target deals with.

What I don't understand, is why your AP Team, is not trespassing these so called g̶u̶e̶s̶t̶s̶ shoplifters. All they have to do, is fill out a form, and their suddenly banned from all Target stores in the country.

The thing about doing a trespass is... if they are caught walking into a store, they can be prosecuted. And in some states, this is now considered a Felony.

 

[HardlinesFour]

Unless we get lucky and they forgot to remove a security sticker from one product (one guy at the desk found a Safeway EAS tag on an Oral-B brush head so he denied the whole return).

Believe it or not, it might be a good idea to call Safeway, and notify them. They have a wonderful Loss Prevention team, and... have offered rewards for descriptions and information about people with their stolen merchandise.

Might be worth your time

 

[TallAPGuy]

Believe it or not, it might be a good idea to call Safeway, and notify them. They have a wonderful Loss Prevention team, and... have offered rewards for descriptions and information about people with their stolen merchandise.

Might be worth your time

I use to work with a guy that works for Safeway LP, and I've been in contact with him, and waiting for him to get back to me with their investigator's number.

 

[queencat]

Wow. Sounds like the police need to be involved if all that is going on.

Yeah I think they're officially banned at this point.
There was also a couple who tried to return stuff using their childs ID (my state offers state IDs to everyone and a lot of parents get them for their kids so it has their birthday/height/weight/etc on it in case of emergency). That was a new low.

 

[NPC]

Believe it or not, those toothbrush heads for sonicare and other brands, are some of the most stolen products, Target deals with.

What I don't understand, is why your AP Team, is not trespassing these so called g̶u̶e̶s̶t̶s̶ shoplifters. All they have to do, is fill out a form, and their suddenly banned from all Target stores in the country.

The thing about doing a trespass is... if they are caught walking into a store, they can be prosecuted. And in some states, this is now considered a Felony.

Hmm, I don't know either then. I haven't heard any issues with guests stealing toothbrush heads from us, just that they try and use coupons on them. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it did happen. I would love to have the peace of mind that our AP team is actively banning some of these people. I don't know if it's got to that stage yet for us.

I have a regular guest who comes in maybe 2-3 a month trying to do huge HBA returns. Apparently some of the GSTLs still do his returns which is why he continues to try his luck. However when I'm there, I don't do it without a receipt though, as I've told him multiple times and regularly remind him of. (he's oddly friendly, but kind of awkward. He's like that shy kid in high school that you were always nice to so that he'd spare your life in case he ever went crazy and decided to shoot up the school) Tonight he came in to Guest Service again, with his bags full of goodies. Before he even made it to the counter, I called over to him, "Do you have your receipt?" ready to turn him away. Much to my surprise, he DID actually have his receipt. But of course, just as I thought, it was easily a 2 foot long receipt with TONS of coupons on it.

I tell him I still wanted approval from an LOD, so I called the LOD on the walkie, by his name. As soon as my guest heard which LOD I called, he immediately got intimidated and nervous, saying he didn't want that LOD to help him, and babbling asking me why I needed approval. Our LOD is so good, he's successfully scared one of our frauders. Essentially I explained to the guest that this specific LOD is going to have to come up here regardless for the return, so he said "Never mind" and left. As he walked away I hollered out to "Have a good night!" To which he sarcastically also wished me a good night. So satisfying!