The True Cost of Returns: Combating Refund Abuse & Return Fraud in a Digital-First World, by AtData
Summary
In today’s digital commerce landscape, returns are no longer just a customer service function — they’ve become a major fraud vector threatening merchant profitability and operational stability. From Organized Retail Crime (ORC) to policy exploitation by repeat offenders, return fraud is evolving fast. The costs? Soaring — not only in lost revenue, but also in degraded customer trust and strained fraud ops teams.
Join us for a dynamic session exploring the real cost of returns fraud in 2025 and how leading merchants and platforms are fighting back. We’ll go beyond basic rules and blacklists to explore how advanced behavioral data, like email intelligence and identity signals, are being used to detect abusive behaviors before they result in losses. Learn how behavioral and historical insights tied to email addresses can flag risk early, improve decisioning, and protect your bottom line — all without disrupting the customer experience.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how return fraud and abuse (costing retailers $103B in 2024 alone) has evolved in 2025 — and the new tactics fraudsters are using.
- Learn how email addresses can serve as early indicators of risky return behavior.
- Discover which email-based signals (e.g., address age, activity, linked behaviors) are most predictive of abuse.
- Explore how merchants are combining email intelligence with transactional data to stop refund fraud before it starts.
- Get actionable tips for integrating identity-driven insights into your return and refund processes.
- See how more than 60 of the top 100 retailers are already using advanced behavioral data to protect revenue and loyalty.
Speakers
