For many Americans, it feels almost too easy to dupe retailers into getting their money back for online purchases they’ve made. Say you’ve bought that new expensive sweater or a pair of headphones, but you don’t want to shoulder the cost. You just submit a claim to the retailer that you never received the package or you didn’t order it in the first place.
But that’s called digital shoplifting—and about half of Gen Zers and millennials who earn more than $100,000 per year admit to having done so in the past year, according to Socure. The anti-fraud tech company surveyed 2,000 Americans between Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, 2024 and found digital shoplifting is more rampant than most people knew.
As for the connection between wealthier shoppers and a higher propensity to commit digital shoplifting, Socure’s head of product management for fraud and identity solutions, Ori Snir, told Fortune he suspects “there might be a link between those who better understand bank and merchant obligations to those that are taking advantage of them.”
Digital shoplifting can include claiming a package was never delivered or was stolen, disputing credit card charges made by the merchant, or saying the product was never intentionally bought in the first place. Shoppers justify these actions with struggles against inflation, seeing “hacks” from social media influencers on how to get money back for purchases, and the perceived leniency of merchants to issue refunds.