A crafty Amazon shopper developed a scheme to make some money off the multinational conglomerate. The plot involved Hudson Hamrick, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, who purchased expensive items through Amazon and then initiated returns.
One problem, the items Hamrick sent back to Amazon were not the items he bought. Instead, Hamrick sent back similar, cheaper items as the returns. On occasion, he went on to sell the original item to get both the return and resale value.
He did this for five years and was estimated to accumulate over $290,000 in total fraud.
U.S. attorneys filed charges in September claiming Hamrick had approximately 300 fraudulent transactions with Amazon. Of the 300, 270 involved product returns. Of the 270 returns, 250 were “materially different in value.”
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