Logo image
Return to sender: Mapping the online economy of refund fraud
Report   Open access

Return to sender: Mapping the online economy of refund fraud

Mark Button, Cassandra Cross, Matthew Edwards and Jack Whittaker
05/2026

Abstract

This report is based on data collected from nulled.to, cracked.io, and linked Telegram channels. A custom web crawler indexed 494,267 posts, with a filtered subset of 128,356 posts from 980 threads/channels selected for qualitative analysis. The sample included both randomly selected threads and purposefully chosen channels focused on UK refund fraud and discussions involving “insiders” (retailer employees assisting fraudsters).

pdf
Refund fraud report1.04 MBDownloadView
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Metrics

1 Record Views

Details

Logo image

Usage Policy