Executives at major retailers believe receipted returns guarantee transaction legitimacy.

This assumption can cost them millions.

One veteran asset protection manager spent years confronting this belief—implementing fraud prevention across 2,000+ stores while navigating leadership's emotional resistance to questioning receipted returns.

Here's what we have in store for you this week:

• The Rundown: Breaking the "receipts equal safe" assumption

• Worth Your Time: 2026 retail shifts and loss prevention priorities

• What We're Up To: The Takeback Talks, RILA AP, Women in Retail Summit

"You can go on Reddit right now and type in any retailer plus 'receipted returns,'" a veteran asset protection manager notes. "Within an hour, you'd be a subject matter expert as it relates to how to defraud that place within the receipted world."

The fraudsters have industrialized their education, while executives still hold the misconception that receipted returns are automatically legitimate transactions. This assumption creates the primary barrier to comprehensive fraud prevention. Leadership believes receipts guarantee transaction legitimacy, while sophisticated fraud methods exploit that exact blind spot. Even when loss data contradicts that belief, the anxiety about customer backlash and declining sales carries more weight.

Retailers recognize the fraud but hesitate to intervene, until they realize that stopping abuse doesn't damage loyalty or revenue. It defends margin and prevents dishonest behavior from eroding what honest customers deserve.

The AP manager learned that emotional resistance from leadership often stems from isolated customer complaints that executives remember more vividly than comprehensive fraud prevention data.

The customer who emails everyone until they reach the CEO, or the person who takes their grievances to X and swears to never shop there again, these incidents happen, but they're a drop in the bucket when compared to the total amount of annual returns processed smoothly.

The successful implementation required five distinct phases:

• Regional assessment to account for dramatic variations between markets

• Associate education emphasizing customer service over fraud detection

• Multi-regional pilots with localized approaches

• Executive storytelling using statistical context

• Enterprise rollout with override systems that maintained culture while achieving goals

The AP manager’s playbook details the complete process for implementing enterprise-wide fraud prevention while securing executive trust through data-driven education.

We know time is money, so we won't waste yours

• Retail trends to watch in 2026 include AI-powered personalization and supply chain resilience (Retail Dive)

• Wegmans deploys facial recognition technology in elevated-risk stores to enhance security (Chain Store Age)

• Store leadership quality is a statistically significant driver of retail loss, and the least-engaged stores lose 48% more than the rest  (ECR Loss)

The Takeback Talks kicks off April 15—45 minutes, closed-door, VP+ only. The topic: the $166B problem nobody owns. LP, finance, ops, and CX in the same room, with David Johnston from the NRF LP Council in the conversation. Not on the list yet? Request your spot.

We're in Phoenix for RILA Asset Protection April 19-22. Private meeting room during expo hours if you want to connect. And we're kicking off Sunday evening at Carry On—think first class vintage airline cabin, craft cocktails, and a simulated flight from New York to Tokyo. Small group, great room. Save your seat.

Closing out the month at the Women in Retail Leadership Summit in Miami, April 27-29. I'm on stage Monday with a session on helping your teams find their professional north star—and we'll be in a luxurious private meeting room all week, so ping me if you want to hang.

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The retailers implementing comprehensive fraud prevention are the ones who break executive assumptions about receipted returns while maintaining customer satisfaction.

Thanks for being part of The Takeback. See you next time. 

And the answer is… Return fraud accounts for 10-15% of retail shrink. When non-receipted returns spike at a store, they become a key indicator of potential shrink concerns across the location.

Ready to take back margin?

Appriss Retail connects returns, fraud, and shrink data across your omnichannel operations. Request a conversation to explore how we help retailers move from reactive investigation to real-time prevention.