Usually our Return Frauders come in with multiple bags stuffed with HBA items, easily equating to hundreds if not a couple thousand dollars. Our AP and one of our LOD-APs have been REALLY good an empowering Guest Service when it comes to turning away these returns. We require a receipt for any large HBA return. After we started doing this, Frauders began bringing in their receipts. However, the system still won't recognize the coupons used in these instances. So I inform the guests, "Okay, just so you know it may take a while, because I have to adjust the prices to what you paid for because of the coupons." Once they hear this, (I've literally had guests saying, "oh I won't get the full price?") they say never mind and leave.
Recently, our Frauders have become keen to the fact that we're not taking these returns, so now they'll come in with smaller returns, around $80-$100. Sometimes with only 4 items at a time. Unfortunately, in those cases, I feel I don't have the grounds to deny their returns, and AP feels the same. So instead I go ahead and do the return, and just inform AP so they can make a note of it. In cases like this, I keep track of the times of the returns and the kind of items. Yesterday I had 4 shady returns within 40 minutes of each other, all from different guests, yet similar items.
The hardest, yet most important thing about this is realizing every case is situational. Standing your ground is important, and keeping your AP team well informed and updated with incidents is the best thing to do. These guests tend to be aggressive. They know all the policies typically, and will threaten to call Corporate multiple times and ask for your name, and try to distract and intimidate you. Ironic, because Corporate knows exactly what's going on. So don't let that scare you. As long as you're doing your job, and being polite and respectful, (never accuse them of fraud for example) then you're doing nothing wrong. The GSTLs in my store are awful about stopping this stuff, so I never bother to ask them for help. So if you find this to be the case, go to whom you feel will support you.