仅退款把大批商家逼上绝路

This article exposes the black industrial chain of malicious "refund without return" fraud in the e-commerce sector and examines the existing rule imbalance in the industry. General readers can take away the following key takeaways:

1. Malicious "refund without return" has evolved from occasional small-scale "wardrobing" to a large-scale gray fraudulent industry. Scammers use AI to generate fake photos of moldy or damaged goods, and have built a complete workflow covering order placement, refund applications and reselling stolen goods on secondary markets. In 2025, this issue accounts for 45.22% of all merchant complaints, making it the top complaint source for e-commerce sellers.

2. Malicious refund fraud ultimately harms ordinary consumers. To offset bad debt losses, merchants either raise product prices across the board or reduce offerings of high-risk categories, leaving consumers with fewer product choices and higher overall online shopping costs.

3. Malicious "refund without return" is explicitly defined as an illegal violation in China; perpetrators can face administrative detention or even criminal penalties, with a maximum prison sentence of six years. Recording the entire packaging and shipping process for evidence is a forced self-protection measure for sellers under unbalanced platform rules, not an act of distrust towards consumers.

This article analyzes the current operating landscape for merchants under the "refund without return" rule framework on major e-commerce platforms, and provides the following actionable insights for brands looking to expand their online channels and manage operational risks:

1. Major e-commerce platforms currently apply low-threshold "refund without return" rules across all product categories, exposing brands to extremely high risk of malicious refund fraud. In 2025, this issue accounts for nearly half of all merchant complaints, with the two leading platforms Taobao and Douyin each recording a share of over 43%. Brands must set aside dedicated risk reserves when planning online channel expansion.

2. Malicious "refund without return" creates permanent bad debt losses for brands. When developing pricing strategies, brands need to reserve space to absorb these bad debt costs, and must optimize internal shipping and evidence preservation processes to reduce the difficulty of providing proof during dispute resolution.

3. The *Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Trading Platform Rules*, which took effect in February 2026, explicitly stipulates that platforms cannot force merchants to assume the responsibility of refund without return. If brands suffer losses due to non-compliant platform reviews, they can legally hold platforms accountable and claim joint liability for damages.

This article exposes the risk of malicious "refund without return" facing e-commerce sellers, provides clear legal basis and actionable response guidance, and offers the following insights for sellers:

1. Risk reminder: Malicious "refund without return" has formed a mature black industrial chain. Scammers have progressed from small-scale opportunistic fraud to bulk attacks, and use AI to forge evidence of product defects. Sellers should prioritize monitoring abnormal orders including bulk purchases from multiple accounts and "refund only" applications filed under various pretexts.

2. Policy basis: The new regulation that took effect in February 2026 explicitly bans platforms from forcing merchants to accept refund without return, and requires platforms to guarantee merchants' right to present arguments and evidence. Sellers can hold non-compliant platforms legally accountable for improper handling.

3. Response measures: Sellers should record the entire packaging and shipping process to preserve evidence. When encountering malicious refund applications, do not give up on维权 easily. In addition to recovering payment, sellers can claim compensation for legal fees, travel costs and other rights protection expenses. Cases involving over 3,000 RMB in losses can be filed as fraud, and platforms can be held jointly liable if they fail to fulfill their review obligations.

As many manufacturers are currently building their own direct-to-consumer e-commerce channels, the e-commerce operational risks exposed in this article offer the following key insights for factories undergoing online business transformation:

1. In terms of production and pricing: If a factory runs its own branded online retail business, it should incorporate the bad debt cost of malicious "refund without return" into product pricing in advance. For categories such as fresh produce that are inherently suited to refund policies, factories should implement stricter quality control and evidence preservation during shipping to reduce opportunities for fraudulent claims.

2. Factories undergoing e-commerce transformation should note that current platform rules generally favor consumers. Factories running online retail must establish a comprehensive order evidence preservation system, recording the entire packaging and shipping process for every order to avoid losing disputes due to insufficient evidence.

3. At the industry level, malicious "refund without return" has forced adjustments on the supply side: many small and medium-sized merchants have reduced offerings of high-risk categories. Factories can align with this market demand, develop product categories that fit current e-commerce rules, and build internal digital evidence management systems to reduce their own online operational risks.

This article outlines the growth trend of malicious "refund without return" in e-commerce and summarizes core pain points for merchants, providing the following insights for service providers serving the e-commerce industry:

1. Industry trend: Malicious "refund without return" has evolved from isolated small-scale opportunistic fraud to a large-scale black industry. AI technology has drastically lowered the barrier for forging evidence, and this problem will continue to grow, leading to a sharp increase in merchant demand for malicious refund risk prevention solutions.

2. Core customer pain points: When merchants encounter malicious refund fraud, they commonly face complex appeal processes, high difficulty in providing evidence, and extremely high costs for cross-region rights protection. Most small and medium-sized merchants lack the time and capacity to complete full evidence collection, and are forced to absorb losses.

3. Business direction reference: Service providers can develop automated shipping evidence recording systems tailored to this pain point, helping merchants automatically record the entire packaging and shipping process and preserve complete evidence. They can also launch supporting legal services for malicious refund rights protection, helping merchants defend their rights at low cost and unlock new business growth points.

This article exposes the problems in the current "refund without return" rules of e-commerce platforms, and provides the following insights for platforms looking to optimize rules and avoid compliance risks:

1. Merchants' core dissatisfaction with platform refund rules focuses on three aspects: one-size-fits-all rules applied to all categories, biased pro-consumer review processes that are effectively meaningless, and blocked merchant appeal channels. These issues have severely damaged merchant confidence in onboarding and operations, and are detrimental to platforms' long-term merchant recruitment efforts.

2. Compliance risk reminder: The new regulation that took effect in February 2026 explicitly requires that platforms cannot force merchants to accept refund without return, and must guarantee merchants' right to argue and present evidence. Existing one-size-fits-all refund rules already violate the new regulation. If platforms do not adjust their rules, they will face compliance risks and may even be sued by merchants to bear joint liability for losses.

3. Rule optimization direction: Platforms do not need to eliminate refund without return entirely. They only need to refine rule design: define the scope of applicability of refund without return by product category, set reasonable monetary thresholds for applications, and improve multi-level merchant appeal channels. Balancing the interests of consumers and merchants is the only way to retain merchants, avoid public relations risks, and achieve long-term healthy development.

This article exposes the emerging problem of malicious "refund without return" in the e-commerce industry in recent years, and illustrates the deep-seated interest conflicts in current e-commerce platform rule design, providing the following insights for industrial research:

1. New industrial trend: With the popularization of AI generation technology, e-commerce fraud has taken on industrialized and technology-driven characteristics. Malicious "refund without return" has evolved from scattered small-scale opportunistic fraud to a large-scale black industry, with a complete value chain covering fraud tutorial distribution, bulk order placement and refund, and reselling stolen goods on secondary platforms, causing severe damage to the entire e-commerce ecosystem.

2. New industry problem: To capture traffic growth, many platforms have adopted a strategy of pleasing consumers at the expense of merchant interests, using low-threshold refund without return as a customer acquisition tool and shifting all after-sales risk to merchants. After the new regulation took effect, many platforms still pay lip service to the rules while continuing non-compliant practices, leading to a severe lack of rule fairness.

3. Research direction inspiration: Researchers can further conduct in-depth research on topics including the interest distribution mechanism among three stakeholders in e-commerce platform rule design, implementation barriers for the new regulation, and how to build trading rules that balance the interests of consumers, merchants and platforms, to provide theoretical support for promoting the healthy development of the e-commerce industry.