Six figure damage
Made-to-order scam: Couple sent back empty packages in droves – and kept goods and money
Package open, goods out, package closed – this is how a couple from Vechta made a lot of money with fraud. (icon picture)
© Anna Gorbacheva
In a case of fraud, the Osnabrück public prosecutor’s office is investigating a young couple who have ordered expensive goods over a long period of time and returned empty boxes. Since the mail order companies hardly or not at all checked the returns, they turned it into a business.
The Cloppenburg / Vechta police station has been investigating a young couple for over a year. The police report According to the report, a 26-year-old man and his 27-year-old partner are said to have repeatedly ordered expensive goods online over a long period of time, only to return the boxes empty or with inferior items as returns. The suspicion: jointly committed, commercial fraud. The police expect damage “in the lower six-digit range”.
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Fraud as a Service
Apparently, the scam worked so well over a longer period of time that the two also offered their services to others – for a fee. The deal: If you wanted cheap, expensive goods, you could order them from the couple. According to the police, the fee is said to have amounted to “a small percentage of the value of the goods”, and they received the purchase price of the goods back anyway as part of the return shipments.
The mail-order companies themselves ultimately made the couple’s success possible. The police assume that the returns were “not or not carefully” checked.
However, the full extent of the machinations only gradually became clear to the investigators. Only after they confiscated and evaluated digital storage media during searches in February 2022 did they realize the scope of the fraud and the commercial activity.
Second search done
Another search followed on Tuesday in a residential and commercial property in Vechta. The police seized mobile phones and other storage media, which are now being evaluated. In addition, according to the officials, “a large number of objects that were allegedly obtained through the fraud were confiscated”.
The report from the police inspection does not reveal what type of goods the couple preferred for the alleged returns. It is well known that goods under a certain value are rarely actually checked – which would make such a scam easier. However, the high amount of damage and the offer as a service speak against the fact that the orders were only small.