China teen makes fraudulent returns on cosmetics platform, profiting US$570,000 from resale
17-year-old makes 11,900 deceptive refund applications after discovering loophole; splurges ill-gotten gains on new mobile phones, friends
A Chinese teenager has been sentenced to six years in prison after he exploited a loophole in an online shopping platform’s refund policy to make thousands of fraudulent claims.
The 17-year-old made 11,900 bogus refund applications without returning the goods and made four million yuan (US$570,000) from doing so.
It was recently reported that a court in Shanghai issued a verdict in his case in July 2025.
In March 2024, a cosmetics shopping platform reported to the police that it had become a victim of fraudulent returns.
Officers arrested the suspect, a 17-year-old surnamed Lu.
Lu allegedly noticed a loophole on an online shopping platform which allowed him to fill in fake courier numbers in his return request and get a refund without the seller receiving the returned goods.
Lu opened multiple accounts to buy products from the platform, before exploiting a loophole to keep both the goods and the refunds.
