Bad Actors and Bribes: Amazon Sues 27 Defendants Running Global Refund Fraud Scheme
Amazon is going after a group it says is running an illegal refund scheme, offering individuals a means to get fraudulent refunds for items ordered on the site.
The online retailer filed a complaint yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle against 27 individuals, including several operating under the name “Rekk.” According to the lawsuit, Rekk “is responsible for stealing millions of dollars of products from Amazon’s online stores through systematic refund abuse.”
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Amazon’s vice president of seller partner services Dharmesh Mehta posted an announcement about the lawsuit on LinkedIn, explaining that individuals participating in the scheme advertised on online forums and social media channels. In exchange for a fee, they would lead people through a process to fraudulently obtain refunds for items ordered on Amazon without the returning the products.
“Organized retail crime, such as refund fraud, negatively affects the entire retail industry, including our customers and selling partners, and we are taking a leading role to bring an end to this practice,” Mehta said. “This lawsuit serves as a clear and strong message to bad actors that Amazon will not stand for attempts to damage the integrity of our store.”
According to the lawsuit, Rekk is one of the largest organizations in an underground industry that offers fraudulent refunds to users. The group operates a channel on cloud-based messenger platform Telegram where it advertises its illegal refund services to more than 30,000 followers.
The complaint outlined Rekk’s process with the example of a user ordering an iPad and paying Rekk a fee, such as 30 percent of the product’s cost, in exchange for a fraudulent refund. The group uses methods such as socially engineering Amazon customer service, phishing Amazon employees, manipulating Amazon’s systems through unauthorized access and even bribing Amazon employees to grant refunds. Rekk has boasted that it has facilitated more than 100,000 fraudulent refunds from a variety of retailers, including Amazon.
The lawsuit names a number of individuals from across the globe as defendants, including Rekk operators, users of the service and former Amazon employees who accepted bribes to participate in the scheme. Named defendants include: Oscar Pineda, Janiyah Alford, Noah Page, Skylar Robinson, William Walsh, Luke Colvin, Alejandro Taveras, Andrew Ling, Brandon Sukhram, Charalampos Gkatzoulas, Cosmin Sopca, Dylan Hinz, Eric Niezabytowski, Graham Ferguson, Ivona Brazovskaja, James Garofalo, Jenny Tran, Johanes Kessel, Jorge Correa, Josh Davis, Karcper Niepogoda, Olaf Booij, Ryan Bates, Sai Charan Beeravelli, Simone Antonio Figura, Zachary Iguelmamene and Zoha Ahmed.
Mehta said in his LinkedIn post that the company detected the fraud through its prevention protocols.
“Amazon uses sophisticated machine learning models to proactively detect and prevent fraud, and employs expert investigators to conduct more extensive manual reviews,” he said. “When fraud is detected, as in this case, Amazon takes a variety of measures to stop the activity, including issuing warnings, closing accounts, and preventing individuals who engaged in refund fraud from opening new accounts.”
Amazon shared news of the lawsuit in forums and on platforms used by the fraudsters to “send a message that this type of illicit behavior will be aggressively pursued,” according to Mehta.
Amazon has made major investments in shutting down fraud and counterfeiters in recent years. According to the lawsuit, in 2022, the online retail giant spent $1.2 billion and employed more than 15,000 people to fight theft, fraud and abuse across its stores.
And the company’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit has conducted numerous raids, disposing of more than 6 million fraudulent products last year. In October, the unit’s work with Chinese authorities led to a counterfeiter being convicted to crimes related to the sale of fake luxury goods. The defendant was sentenced to three years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
This lawsuit calls for an injunction against the defendants from interacting with Amazon as a customer or using the company’s name, creating or interacting with accounts on platforms such as Telegram, Nulled, Reddit and Discord, and engaging in any similar fraudulent activities. The suit also asks for the defendants to pay damages to Amazon.
