The Return Grift Is Over

Online retailers have finally caught on to shoppers abusing their too-easy return policies. The punishment? A life sentence.

- Laura Pitcher

LAST SUMMER, Karen, a product manager in San Francisco, returned $180 worth of her $295.39 order from Urban Outfitters. The next time she clicked checkout on an order from the retailer, a few weeks later, it wouldn’t go through. Confused, she kept trying—until she got an email informing her that she was no longer allowed to order from the website, or any of its associated establishments, because of an “excessive return rate.” She was surprised. She had been steadily

returning items to Urban Outfitters about once a month since high school without a problem. “I would essentially use the return policy the same way other people use stores and malls because I don’t have a car,” she says. “When a company says ‘free returns,’ there are probably some people they expect won’t return anything. But then there are people like me.”