Amazon, Best Buy,Home Depot,Victoria's Secret, and other companies are tracking shoppers' returns dating back several years and, in some cases, punishing people who are suspected of abusing their return policies.Many shoppers are unaware their returns are being tracked.Home Depot engages in the practice to combat return fraud, which"is believed to be feeding the opioid epidemic," aHome Depot spokesman told Business Insider. Sephora says only customers with "excessive returns" are targeted.At least a dozen major retailers are discreetly tracking shoppers' returns and punishing people who are suspected of abusing their return policies.Amazon, Best Buy,Home Depot,andVictoria's Secret are among the many retailers engaging in this practice.Many of these companies have hired a third-party firm, called The Retail Equation, to mine their sales data and keep a database of customers' returns to flagpotentially problematic shoppers. Customers who are flagged are often barred from making future returns.Retailers say they use the service to combat return fraud. Some critics say its raises privacy concerns, however, and dozens of shoppers have complained online about being unfairly punished by the system.Business Insider compiled a list of the companies that track returns, based on information from the companies as well as customer complaints on social media.Here's the full list:SEE ALSO:Kroger is charging at Amazon with a company that uses 'swarms' of robots to get shoppers hooked on a 'powerful new drug'AmazonAmazon is banning customers who make too many returns, The Wall Street Journal reports.In some cases, Amazon failed to alert customers that they had returned too many items before closing their accounts."We want everyone to be able to use Amazon, but there are rare occasions where someone abuses our service over an extended period of time," an Amazon spokesman told The Journal. "We never take these decisions lightly, but with over 300 million customers around the world, we take action when appropriate to protect the experience for all our customers."Home DepotHome Depot spokesman Stephen Holmes said the company uses The Retail Equation to combat return fraud, which he said is "believed to be feeding the opioid epidemic.""And returns fraud is also often the work of organized retail crime rings, thus funding serious crimes," he added. "These efforts not only protect the retailers bottom line, but they also help protect the communities where we do business. "Unlike many other retailers, Home Depot only tracks returns that are not accompanied by a receipt, he said."The good news is that its pretty easy to avoid a non-receipted return these days because we can look up any card transaction or customers can opt to receive an email receipt rather than try to keep up with paper," he said.CVS PharmacyCVS said it partnered with The Retail Equation (or TRE) last year."TRE's return management services are utilized by several major retailers representing more than 34,000 retail locations in the US," CVS said. "Since implementing TREs solution last year, approximately .003% (or one-third of 1%) of returns have been declined at our stores."A customer whose return has been declined can dispute the decision through TRE, which will then initiate a review process with CVS, the company added.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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