What is Return Authorization?

The Retail Equation’s Verify Return Authorization solution was launched almost 10 years ago and provides the retailers you shop the ability to extend more flexible and liberal return policies, while still taking a proactive approach to curbing the problem of return fraud and abuse.

Learn about consumer benefits of Verify Return Authorization
Learn about who uses Verify Return Authorization

What is Return Fraud and Abuse?

Fraudulent and abusive returns are a $14-18 billion per year problem for retailers in the United States. 

• Return fraud is the act of somehow defrauding a retail establishment via the return process. For example, the offender may return or exchange stolen merchandise to secure cash, or steal receipts and/or receipt tape to enable a falsified return.
• Return abuse is a form of “friendly fraud” where someone purchases products without intending to keep them. Perhaps the most well-known form of this abuse is “wardrobing” or “renting” – in which the person makes a purchase, uses the product(s), and then returns or exchanges the merchandise.

Learn more about return fraud from Wikipedia
Learn more about the size from the National Retail Federation

What is a Return Activity Report?

A Return Activity Report is a history of your return and exchange transactions posted in stores using Verify Return Authorization. The report lists return activity information including the stores you have returned to and, for each return, the date and time, whether it was receipted or non-receipted, and the dollar amount.

Request your Return Activity Report

Charitable Giving at the Return Counter
The Retail Equation's Change for Charity is a new spin on an old concept; it replaces the physical charitable spare change containers that retailers often have at their registers and return counters with a far more efficient, accurate, and secure system to manage corporate giving. If fact, our research shows that there is well over $30 billion worth of change exchanged annually via all types of retail transactions, almost half occurring during the holiday shopping season when people are most charitable.

Learn more about Change for Charity