Blog / Refund abuse
Exclusive Ravelin data reveals the sheer extent of ecommerce refund abuse, including how harmful repeat refund abusers are and the measures to stop them.
17 August 2026
Refund abuse is easy to do and easy to get away with: A mind-blowing 98% of consumers who attempted refund abuse say they were successful. What’s more, 46% of refund abusers report being successful every time.
These were just two of the interesting takeaways of Ravelin’s State of Refund Abuse Report, which revealed a significant and increasing challenge for merchants.
Let’s dive deep into what we found from this refund-related survey of 6,200+ consumers, what the findings mean, and what Ravelin advises merchants should do to mitigate against the new tide of abusive behavior.
Ravelin surveyed 6,282 online shoppers across the UK, France, and Germany and found that over one in four (27%) openly admit to exploiting returns policies.
That figure rises to 37% in the UK, with France in second place (33%).
Abusers are becoming more confident and, crucially, they are largely getting away with it.
Younger generations take the lead, with almost half (47%) of those aged 18 to 34, and three in 10 (30%) of those aged 35 to 54 years old admitting to engaging in at least one activity linked to refund abuse in the past year. The survey reveals the practice to be broadly equally distributed across genders.
Mass adoption of AI seems to be a key driver of first-party refund abuse.
We’ve looked before into how generative AI tools are used by refund abusers to fabricate claims evidence, and the survey concurs: 65% agree that AI has made it easier for them to falsely claim a refund.
However, the democratization of AI has even wider impact on the refund abuse fraudscape. More than half of those who do abuse refunds or consider doing so report a shift in mentality: 55% state that AI makes fraudulent refund claims feel less wrong.
Our research also revealed that it’s repeat offenders who cause the most devastating losses for ecommerce companies.
Frequent abusers report higher gains in addition to filing more fraudulent refund and returns claims – with almost £1000/€1000 a year lost to each frequent refund abuser.
These frequent abusers averaged £491/€491 per claim. Compare this to £420/€420 per claim for those who do refund abuse two to three times a year, and a more moderate £390/€390 for once a year.
It seems that practice makes perfect (or is it bolder?) when it comes to online crime too.
In fact, frequent abusers are more brazen in their attitudes as well, feeling more justified than any other category of abuser in every single scenario presented to them.
And they attempt refunds for more than their purchases as well compared to non-frequent abusers.
Refund and returns abuse is a complex matter, and admittedly less visible than some more established types of fraud, such as card-not-present fraud.
In fact, we would recommend that you start by knowing how to quantify your problem (and assess your upcoming solution) by fine-tuning refund abuse metrics to keep track of.
Once you have solid KPI foundations in place, here are five actions to take today:
Move away from post-hoc checks toward proactive refund abuse prevention that takes into account a customer’s entire history.
The data shows that people who engage in refund abuse multiple times are far more likely to continue doing so increasingly often, so there is a degree of predictability.
Intervening early prevents opportunistic behavior from becoming habitual, while looking at the bigger picture helps flag issues not identifiable when reviewing individual refund claims.
Refund abusers are not a single group. Merchants must distinguish not just between good and abusive customers, but go further based on their techniques and habits.
This way, specific interventions can be identified for specific subgroups of refund abusers. This includes, for example, certain casual opportunists who can be nudged back to good behavior, chronic offenders who should face tighter controls, and professional cybercriminals to be banned entirely.
Once you know which cohort each refund abuser belongs in, you will want to target abusers with specific measures such as warnings, claim denial, or account blocks.
At the same time, you will be able to confidently and safely offer incentives and maintain a fast, friction-free experience for good customers to protect loyalty and revenue.
This is one of the multiple ways sophisticated fraud detection can boost profits, not just cut losses.
Sales, incentives, major shopping events, and gift-buying periods… Every marketing push can bring peak opportunities for fraud.
As a fraud team, aligning with Marketing and other growth functions can not just help balance growth and risk, but actually gains you wider company buy-in for deterrent interventions and increases your chances of success.
Today, it is practically impossible to contain fraud or abuse with static fraud rules. Instead, merchants must shift and evolve in line with abusive behaviors.
Every merchant’s fraud and abuse is different, so their data is valuable and should be utilized as much as possible in the fight against abusive behavior.
And just like abusers increasingly rely on AI to support their false claims, merchants must deploy AI-powered fraud prevention tools, drawing on machine learning, GenAI, natural language processing (NLP) and more innovation, to stay ahead.
Read the State of Refund Abuse Report 2026 to better understand refund abusers' mentality, motives, what can make them stop, and how to do so.
Nikoleta Dimitriou Senior Content Manager
