Popularized on social networks, this practice is broken down into five steps: buy a product on an online sales platform (Amazon or Shein type), receive your package, declare that they have not received it, be reimbursed and resell your package.
And according to the last cases tried in court in recent months in France, “refunders” or fraudsters in reimbursement managed to win between 500 and 2000 euros per week. But if the majority gets caught up in justice, some still pass through the meshes of the net.
More worrying, several crooks share their practice on social networks like Telegram or Tiktok. This type of scam gaining so much magnitude, professional networks would even have been formed.
What potential sanctions?
But the platforms do not remain without doing anything. They would have engaged a real struggle, in collaboration with “international organizations (Interpol, Europol) and local authorities to identify organized networks”.
Amazon, for example, uses artificial intelligence algorithms to detect fraudulent schemes such as abnormal returns, repetitive addresses. The platform can even “block users identified as fraudulent, thanks to their IP address and their digital imprint.
Because in recent years, the arrival of strong authentication (where each account must be associated with a telephone number) has slowed the practice, before the crooks develop other techniques to continue their activities.
According to the Criminal Code, the latter are exposed to sentences punishable by 5 years’ imprisonment and 375,000 euros fine for breach of trust or fraud.
If a third party recovers the products or participates in fraud, it can also be prosecuted for concealment of goods.
Finally, the creators of content that encourages these practices are likely to incur just as severe judicial sanctions for the complicity of a scam.
