If you’ve been following along with our posts for a while, you know how often refund fraud occurs. Refund fraud is no joke! Well, today, we saw it in action. It could be happening in your town or in your local small business.
A New Jersey man, Mark Cocciardi Jr., was charged with scamming almost $270,000 from his employer. How did he do this, you ask? Refund fraud.
Cocciardi worked as a sales manager at a New Jersey-based construction supply company. This meant he was responsible for leading day-to-day sales operations and guiding sales associates. So… he was given control of the store’s cash. And trusted with it.
Between August 2021 and October 2022, Cocciardi processed $268,800 in building material returns. The catch? The goods had never been returned. And he refunded the cash to his own credit cards.
He was arrested for second-degree theft on Tuesday and could face 10 years in prison.
It almost makes you wonder, how did Cocciardi come up with this strategy? And how did he get away with it for so long? Simple: he recognized the weakness of the broken refund system and took advantage of it.
Now, you could blame the company for neglecting to recognize this loss for so long. But you also have to recognize the general corruption that occurs constantly… countless other companies are unknowingly being defrauded every day. Imagine the degree to which this is occurring for larger companies.
You normally think of customers committing refund fraud; an example we’ve used before is merchants being shipped back a literal box of rocks in place of the good. But now, companies have been infiltrated internally.
Fraud like this is all around us. And it’ll continue to happen so long as refund policies stay the same. That’s why we need someone to step up and change this broken financial system.
Yours Truly,
The Instant Refund Expert™
The Refunds Blog 