Picture this: you order a sweater online, it arrives at your house, and it’s not the color you ordered. You go to return it and the retailer surprises you by saying something like, “We’ll refund you, but don’t bother sending it back.”
If this phenomenon has happened to you at some point in the past few years, you’re not alone: some of America’s largest retailers have started issuing refunds while telling customers to keep or donate the unwanted goods.
Walmart, Target, and Amazon are among the companies who occasionally offer so-called returnless refunds on certain items for some customers. Each confirmed to Business Insider that a small number of orders are refunded without a return, though none agreed to reveal specific dollar amounts or other parameters.
In other words, the practice won’t lead to free TVs and computers — it’s intended for situations where the retailer is unlikely to resell the …