Retail Sales Receipts Tampered With

Retail return fraud has existed for years with people trying to alter sales receipts and claiming fraudulent cash refunds from small businesses. The schemes are still around and small business owners and employees should be continually vigilent. However, the big worry for small business, is that these fraud schemes are now more sophisticated.

The latest scam involves journal tape, the paper that runs through cash registers, being taken out of store rooms and cash registers and then sold. Small business retailers might ask what use the tapes would be to anyone. Well, there are now printers and scanners available from almost any electronics store that can reprint, duplicate and recast sales receipts. The digits on sales receipts can be altered.

Here is an example: A customer could have a sales receipt for $100 for a shirt. That sales receipt could then be copied giving a fraudster the opportunity to return as many of those shirts as the fraudster can get his or her hands on. It could mean shoplifting the goods and then returning to the store requesting a cash refund.

Some fraudster would simply take the same item off the shelf, remove the tags and put the item in a shop bag and take it to the sales desk (without leaving the store) with the fake receipt and request a cash refund.

People also get receipts from the trash or reuse their own receipts multiple times. The message in all this is, that every small business needs to have policies and controls in place, to protect the small business from refund/return fraud.