Two men from Enschede (26) and Hoogezand (24) have been guilty of fraud involving returned goods from Amazon. According to the judge, the men did this in a refined manner.
Both men worked at a PostNL location in Hoogezand during the period of 2022 and 2023. According to the judge, they had a fixed working method. The oldest suspect created a piece of software on his laptop with which he imitated Amazon’s returns system. The man managed to fraudulently obtain login details from PostNL. Which allowed him to activate the counterfeit self-service point (clone).
The men ordered goods from Amazon and paid for them. After receipt, they printed out return labels via the clone. They abused Amazon’s service, which immediately refunded the purchase price as soon as they received a return label notification.
The men returned empty boxes or boxes containing junk. This will also happen refund fraud named. Amazon was duped for more than 260,000 euros in this way.
The men managed to obtain goods in this way without paying for them. The loot was sold, the judge explained. The trick was also shared with a gang from Hoogeveen.
The 26-year-old suspect showed others the homemade software during a meeting in August 2022 in a warehouse in Hoogeveen. And how easy it was to ‘earn’ a lot of money this way. He left his laptop behind, so the Hoogeven residents continued with this way of self-enrichment.
The man told the judge that he did not feel responsible for the actions of the group in Hoogeveen. The judge sees it differently. By leaving his laptop behind after giving a presentation, he knew the others would pull off this trick.
This makes him an accomplice in this case, even though he was no longer physically present at the time.
The man from Enschede had the biggest role in this whole. He was sentenced to one and a half years in prison for computer trespassing, bottle stealing, fraud, illegal fireworks and drug possession. Six months of this is conditional. The man from Hoogezand was given a community service order of 240 hours and a suspended prison sentence of six months. The sentences are the same as what the Public Prosecution Service demanded at the beginning of November.
Amazon has been awarded damages of almost 260,000 euros. The men have to pay PostNL more than 8,000 euros. The gang from Hoogeveen must appear in court in January.