CHICAGO -- Retailers are expected to lose less money due to fraudulent returns of merchandise this holiday season from a year ago as stores tighten return policies, according to a survey released on Thursday.
Return fraud is expected to cost retailers $2.74 billion in 2009, down more than 17 percent from $3.32 billion a year earlier, according to the National Retail Federation's survey of loss prevention executives at 134 retailers.
Many retailers have adopted stricter return policies in recent years, including requiring receipts and adhering to time limits on returns in order to cut back on fraud.
"Retailers are constantly trying to fine-tune return policies to create guidelines that honest customers can live with and dishonest people can't get around," Joe LaRocca, senior asset protection advisor for NRF, a retail trade association, said in a statement.
A total of 6.4 percent of holiday returns are expected to be fraudulent this year, down from 7.5 percent a year earlier.
So far this year, certain categories of fraud are down, the survey said.
Wardrobing -- the practice of buying clothes or other items for one-time special use, then returning them -- was reported by 46.2 percent of companies this year, down from 64.2 percent a year earlier.
Returns using counterfeit receipts were reported by 43.1 percent of retailers, down from 45.7 percent a year earlier.
But returns of stolen merchandise were reported by 93.1 percent of retailers surveyed, up from 88.9 percent a year earlier. Returns of merchandise purchased with stolen credit cards or counterfeit money or the like were reported by 75.4 percent of retailers, up from 74.1 percent a year earlier.
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