🇩🇪Germany

Refund-Missbrauch und Friendly Fraud in der Online-Retail

Updated: Feb 20261 verified sources

Definition

German merchants report that 54% find it difficult to tell when a legitimate cardholder is misrepresenting the truth to gain money or items versus making a genuine claim. The majority receive refund claims for 2-5% of their sales. Despite this, many merchants prioritize customer loyalty over refund abuse prevention, creating systemic revenue leakage.

Key Findings

Financial Impact: 2-5% of transaction volume per merchant; €54 billion in transactions processed annually across surveyed merchants indicates potential €1.08-€2.7 billion in exposed refund abuse across German e-commerce.
Frequency: Recurring (2-5% of all transactions)
Root Cause: Lack of automated decision-making tools; merchant reluctance to implement friction due to brand reputation concerns; insufficient machine learning integration for legitimate vs. fraudulent claim differentiation.

Why This Matters

This pain point represents a significant opportunity for B2B solutions targeting Online and Mail Order Retail.

Affected Stakeholders

Online Merchants, Payment Processors, Fraud Operations Teams

Deep Analysis (Premium)

Financial Impact

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Current Workarounds

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Methodology & Sources

Data collected via OSINT from regulatory filings, industry audits, and verified case studies.

Evidence Sources:

https://pages.ravelin.com/hubfs/FS25%20Fraud%20and%20Payments%20Survey%202025/FS25%20countries%20-%20Germany%20fraud%20trends%202025%20(digital).pdf

Related Business Risks

Verstoß gegen Digital Services Act (DSA) – Plattformverantwortung

DSA fines: Up to 6% of annual global turnover (or €20 million, whichever is higher) for systemic failures; typical investigation + enforcement cycle = 6-12 months of operational disruption; estimated cost to remediate non-compliant fraud detection systems = €50,000-€500,000 per platform.

Professionelle Betrüger und organisiertes E-Commerce-Fraud

No exact loss amount disclosed; however, 71% merchant expectation of increasing fraud indicates current baseline fraud rates of 3-7% of revenue (industry standard); for €54 billion in surveyed transaction volume = €1.62-€3.78 billion annual exposure to professional fraud.

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