Fraudulent Returning Tendency (FRT)

1. Abstract

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency (FRT) scale—also frequently designated in consumer psychology and retail marketing literature as the Fraudulent Return Proclivity (FRP) scale—is a specialized psychometric instrument introduced by consumer behavior researcher Lloyd C. Harris in 2008. The scale was developed to systematically operationalize, evaluate, and predict an individual’s propensity to engage in deceptive, opportunistic, or dishonest product returns within retail environments. Specifically, the instrument captures covert forms of aberrant consumer behavior, including “wardrobing” (purchasing merchandise, utilizing it for short-term consumption, and subsequently returning it for a full refund), returning deliberately or accidentally broken goods under false pretenses of inherent defect, and exploiting generous retailer return policies through premeditated misrepresentation. Composed of six unidimensional items scored on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”), the FRT scale provides an empirically rigorous alternative to post-hoc behavioral tallies and qualitative deshopping anecdotes.

Psychometric evaluations across multiple empirical investigations confirm that the instrument exhibits superior internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients uniformly exceeding 0.88 and composite reliabilities remaining well above established methodological thresholds. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across diverse consumer cohorts verifies a stable, parsimonious single-factor architecture that demonstrates robust convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validities. By linking deceptive return behaviors to theoretical paradigms such as Neutralization Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Deterrence Theory, the FRT scale enables marketing scholars, retail loss-prevention analysts, and behavioral economists to quantitatively gauge ethical disengagement and assess interventions intended to reduce multi-billion-dollar inventory shrink without degrading customer service standards for legitimate patrons.

2. Keywords

Fraudulent Returning Tendency, consumer misbehavior, retail fraud, wardrobing, deshopping, psychometrics, neutralization theory, consumer ethics, retail loss prevention, scale validation

3. Authors

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency (FRT) scale was developed by Lloyd C. Harris, Professor of Marketing and Strategy. During the conceptualization and empirical validation of this instrument, Professor Harris was affiliated with the Cardiff Business School at Cardiff University (Wales, United Kingdom) and later served as Professor of Marketing at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (Coventry, United Kingdom), and the University of Birmingham.

Professor Harris is an internationally recognized authority on organizational dynamics, marketing strategy, service sabotage, and consumer deviance. His foundational research program has extensively examined the “dark side” of frontline service interactions, customer misbehavior, dysfunctional customer encounters, and systemic employee-consumer conflict. Inquiries regarding the original scale development work and conceptual derivations are traditionally directed to the author via institutional academic channels or through correspondence associated with the originating publication in the Journal of Retailing.

4. Purpose

In contemporary omni-channel retail management, return fraud and merchandise abuse account for tens of billions of dollars in annual inventory shrink and operational devaluation globally. Historically, retail management treated fraudulent returns as an unavoidable operational nuisance or an anomalous crime analogous to amateur shoplifting. However, empirical investigations by consumer psychologists revealed that deceptive returns are largely perpetrated by otherwise normative, law-abiding consumers who exploit lenient customer service guarantees and “no-questions-asked” return policies. Prior to the formal introduction of the FRT scale, researchers lacked an established, psychometrically validated instrument capable of isolating the individual psychological proclivity toward deceptive returns from broader, generalized constructs such as general dishonesty, thrill-seeking, or anti-corporate sentiment.

The primary purpose of the Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale is to provide a standardized, psychometrically sound, self-report measurement tool that assesses an individual’s enduring likelihood over time to initiate deceitful product returns. Specifically, the instrument seeks to capture two pervasive, often blurred categories of non-criminalized consumer fraud:

• Retail Borrowing (“Wardrobing”): The deliberate acquisition of consumer goods (predominantly apparel, consumer electronics, specialized event tools, or luxury accessories) with the premeditated intent to use the item for an event or temporal utility and subsequently return it for a complete financial refund.
• Deceptive Defect and Breakage Attribution: The opportunistic return of products that were damaged, broken, excessively worn, or misused by the consumer, while falsely asserting to store associates that the product was inherently defective, unfit for purpose, or damaged prior to purchase.

The scale serves vital diagnostic and investigative functions within both academic research and applied retail analytics. In academic domains, the scale allows behavioral researchers to examine the causal pathways linking consumer personality traits—such as Machiavellianism, moral identity, subclinical psychopathy, and locus of control—to actual retail fraud. In applied organizational settings, the FRT construct assists retail operations researchers in modeling the behavioral impact of restrictive versus liberalized return policies, designing targeted return-fraud mitigation systems, and evaluating whether cognitive or moral “nudges” embedded within point-of-sale or digital return portals can attenuate the expression of fraudulent intentions without alienating honest shoppers.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale is defined as a consumer’s cognitive predisposition, affective readiness, and behavioral intention to deliberately mislead a retail organization regarding the legitimate basis of a merchandise return in pursuit of illicit financial or material gain. Unlike overt predatory theft or organized retail crime rings—which involve systemic shoplifting, counterfeit receipts, and stolen credit instruments—the FRT construct captures an everyday form of consumer deviance embedded within socially sanctioned transactions.

The construct operates along a continuous psychological continuum. At the low end of the spectrum are consumers exhibiting strong internal moral compasses, strict adherence to institutional equity, and intense anticipatory guilt, who view return policies strictly as insurance against genuine product failure or sizing errors. At the high end of the spectrum are consumers who perceive retail return policies as exploitable loopholes, demonstrating a persistent cognitive openness to using retailers as free “rental agencies” or passing off personal wear-and-tear as retail liability.

Psychologically, the construct encompasses three interrelated cognitive-behavioral facets:

• Premeditated Consumer Opportunism: The cognitive calculation where a shopper intentionally purchases merchandise with zero intent of permanent ownership, planning in advance to extract utility from the product and exploit the retailer’s restitution systems.
• Externalization of Fault and Deceptive Attribution: The propensity to actively fabricate narratives regarding product breakdown. When a consumer damages an item through negligence, excessive force, or accidental dropping, the high-FRT consumer cognitively reframes the event and verbally misrepresents the failure as an inherent manufacturing flaw or vendor defect.
• Moral Disengagement and Cognitive Rationalization: The psychological capacity to neutralize cognitive dissonance through mental accounting techniques. Individuals exhibiting high FRT scores do not view themselves as criminals; rather, they conceptualize their behavior as a benign, victimless assertion of “consumer rights” or a deserved compensation against large, faceless corporate entities.

Importantly, empirical construct validation demonstrates that FRT is conceptually distinct from the sheer frequency of product returns. A consumer who regularly purchases ten garments online and returns eight due to genuine sizing, fabric, or color discrepancies demonstrates high return frequency, but possesses zero fraudulent return tendency. Conversely, a consumer who executes only two returns per year, but both involve garments worn to formal weddings with tags concealed and re-attached, embodies a high fraudulent returning tendency.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale is rooted in an integration of three major theoretical paradigms: Neutralization Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Deterrence Theory.

Neutralization Theory

Originally formulated in sociological criminology by Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957), Neutralization Theory posits that individuals engaged in illicit or deviant behaviors utilize specific cognitive rationalizations to silence internal moral sanctions and preserve a positive self-image. Lloyd C. Harris embedded the FRT construct deeply within this framework, demonstrating that high-FRT consumers employ five classical neutralization techniques to justify fraudulent returns:

1. Denial of Responsibility: The individual convinces themselves that external circumstances compelled their actions (e.g., “The store’s prices are far too high, so I have no other choice if I want to wear nice clothes”).
2. Denial of Injury: The consumer rationalizes that the corporate entity sustains no tangible financial loss (e.g., “They are a multi-million-dollar corporation; a $60 dress return means nothing to their bottom line”).
3. Denial of the Victim: The retailer is perceived as an exploitative entity that deserves economic retaliation (e.g., “Stores constantly rip off consumers with high margins, so they deserve this”).
4. Condemnation of the Condemners: The consumer shifts focus toward frontline staff or retail executives, viewing retail policies as hypocritical or punitive.
5. Appeal to Higher Loyalties: The individual frames the deceptive act as necessary to fulfill social expectations (e.g., needing to look professional for an employment interview or prominent social gathering without possessing the requisite disposable income).

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)

Derived from social psychology (Ajzen, 1991), the Theory of Planned Behavior dictates that intentional behaviors are directly driven by behavioral intentions, which are formed by attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Within the FRT paradigm:

• Attitude toward Deceptive Returns: Favorable or unfavorable evaluations of returning used/broken goods. High FRT reflects an affective alignment where the behavior is perceived as clever, thrifty, or enterprising rather than shameful.
• Subjective Norms: The perceived social pressure from peer reference groups. Research demonstrates that deshopping behaviors are frequently learned and socially reinforced among peer networks that trade advice on how to successfully “wardrobe” items without getting caught.
• Perceived Behavioral Control: The consumer’s assessment of ease versus difficulty in deceiving store associates. When retailers maintain highly accommodating, conflict-averse customer service mandates, consumers perceive high behavioral control, accelerating the conversion of latent proclivity into manifest fraudulent returns.

Deterrence Theory

Classical Deterrence Theory asserts that illicit behaviors are moderated by the perceived certainty, severity, and celerity of formal sanctions. In retail environments, when return desk transactions lack identity verification (e.g., requiring a driver’s license or tracking customer return histories via algorithmic databases), the perceived certainty of sanction drops to near zero. Under these structural conditions, individuals with elevated FRT levels readily execute deceptive returns because the perceived economic reward vastly outweighs any perceived probability of social confrontation, embarrassment, or legal penalty.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale has been established through rigorous empirical testing utilizing both exploratory and confirmatory protocols across diverse consumer samples.

Content and Face Validity

Content validity was developed through exhaustive literature reviews in retail loss prevention, consumer deviance, and services marketing, combined with in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with retail store managers, customer service associates, and self-confessed “deshoppers.” Items were iteratively refined, evaluated by expert academic panels specializing in psychometrics and consumer ethics, and screened for clarity, semantic redundancy, and construct under-representation. The final six-item inventory demonstrates high face validity, as each item unambiguously reflects a direct, non-ambiguous instance of fraudulent return intention or behavior.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity evaluates whether the scale correlates strongly with theoretically related behavioral constructs. Empirical findings by Harris (2008) and subsequent replication studies confirm strong convergent validity:

• Consumer Ethical Beliefs: The FRT scale exhibits statistically significant negative correlations (typically ranging from r = -0.45 to r = -0.62, p < .001) with the “Actively Benefiting from Illegal Activities” and “Passively Benefiting at the Expense of Others” dimensions of the Muncy-Vitell Consumer Ethics Scale.
• Neutralization Propensity: Significant positive correlations (r = 0.51 to 0.68, p < .001) have been documented between FRT and general measures of consumer moral neutralization techniques.
• Machiavellianism: FRT scores correlate positively with the Mach-IV scale (r = 0.38 to 0.49, p < .001), indicating that individuals with manipulative, cynical interpersonal orientations are significantly more prone to exploiting retail return policies.

Discriminant Validity

To verify that the FRT scale measures a unique psychological construct rather than general anti-social behavior or ordinary retail activity, discriminant validity was evaluated using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and average variance extracted (AVE) analyses:

• The average variance extracted (AVE) for the FRT scale routinely exceeds 0.60, substantially higher than the squared correlation between FRT and conceptually proximate constructs such as general shoplifting proclivity (r² < 0.25), product dissatisfaction, or general shopping frequency.
• Discriminant validity testing confirms that FRT does not correlate with legitimate, satisfaction-driven product returns. Individuals scoring high on legitimate return volume (e.g., returning items due to poor fit or legitimate factory defects) do not exhibit elevated scores on the FRT items unless deceptive intent is concurrently present.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Criterion-related validity has been demonstrated through cross-sectional surveys, experimental scenarios, and behavioral simulations. In scenario-based experimental manipulations, respondents scoring in the upper quartile of the FRT scale were more than four times more likely (odds ratio > 4.2, p < .001) to recommend returning a worn garment or damaged item in hypothetical vignettes compared to respondents in the lowest quartile. Furthermore, longitudinal self-reports confirmed that baseline FRT scores prospectively predicted documented deshopping occurrences over a subsequent 12-month window.

8. Reliability

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale demonstrates exceptional reliability across multiple psychometric criteria, establishing that the instrument yields stable and consistent measurements across diverse consumer populations.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the foundational scale development study by Harris (2008), the scale demonstrated high internal consistency across multiple independent cohorts:

• Initial Calibration Sample: Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) was recorded at 0.91, indicating exceptional item homogeneity without excessive item redundancy.
• Cross-Validation Sample: Re-estimation in an independent consumer sample yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses reported composite reliability values exceeding 0.90, substantially surpassing the conventional psychometric threshold of 0.70 proposed by Nunnally and Bernstein.
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE): AVE values ranged between 0.63 and 0.72, confirming that more than 60% of the variance captured by the indicators is accounted for by the underlying latent construct rather than measurement error.

Test-Retest Reliability

Subsequent methodological evaluations examining the temporal stability of the scale across a four-week test-retest interval among student and non-student consumer cohorts yielded a test-retest correlation coefficient of r = 0.84 (p < .001). This high level of temporal consistency confirms that the FRT scale captures an enduring psychological proclivity or behavioral disposition rather than a transient, momentary mood state.

Inter-Item and Item-Total Correlations

Corrected item-to-total correlations across the six scale indicators uniformly exceed 0.65, with values commonly falling between 0.68 and 0.81. Deletion of any single item from the six-item battery results in a decrease in overall scale alpha, confirming that each item provides unique, incremental variance to the composite construct.

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive factor-analytic evaluations confirm that the Fraudulent Returning Tendency scale possesses a clean, robust, and parsimonious unidimensional structural architecture.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial instrument development, exploratory factor analyses were conducted using principal axis factoring and principal component analysis with varimax and oblimin rotations. Key findings included:

• Sampling Adequacy: The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently exceeded 0.88, and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was highly significant ($\chi^2(15) = 1428.62, p < .001$), establishing strong data factorability.
• Eigenvalue and Variance Explained: Extraction yielded a clear single-factor solution. The first initial eigenvalue substantially exceeded unity (eigenvalue > 3.80), while the second eigenvalue dropped sharply below 0.65. This single dominant factor accounted for between 64.5% and 71.2% of the total variance across analyzed samples.
• Factor Loadings: All six items loaded cleanly and strongly onto this single dimension, with standardized factor loadings ranging from 0.74 to 0.88, exhibiting zero cross-loading anomalies.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To definitively substantiate structural dimensionality, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using maximum likelihood estimation in structural equation modeling (SEM) packages (e.g., AMOS, LISREL, Mplus). The hypothesized one-factor model demonstrated exceptional goodness-of-fit to the observed empirical data across multiple rigorous fit indices:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom: $\chi^2 / df$ ratio consistently fell below 2.5 (e.g., $\chi^2(9) = 18.45, p > .02$), indicative of an excellent structural fit.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values ranged between 0.985 and 0.994 (exceeding the standard 0.95 benchmark).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Values ranged between 0.978 and 0.990.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates were recorded between 0.038 and 0.052, with 90% confidence intervals well below the 0.08 cutoff for acceptable error.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values ranged from 0.021 to 0.034, reflecting negligible residual discrepancy.

Alternative two-factor models—attempting to statistically separate wardrobing intentions from defect misrepresentation—failed to improve model fit significantly and resulted in inter-factor correlations exceeding r = 0.85, confirming that a single, unified latent construct provides the most parsimonious and psychometrically sound representation of fraudulent return proclivity.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency (FRT) scale is a structured, self-report psychometric instrument designed for rapid administration in laboratory, online, or field survey contexts.

• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychological self-report questionnaire.
• Target Population: Adult consumers (ages 18 and older) who engage in retail purchasing across physical or e-commerce channels.
• Administration Format: Standard paper-and-pencil questionnaire, web-based survey interface, or mobile-responsive digital form.
• Completion Time: Approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
• Item Count: 6 standardized statements.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type scale formatted as follows:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Protocol:
  • All 6 items are positively worded in the direction of fraudulent returning proclivity; therefore, no reverse-coding is required.
  • Composite Index Calculation: Scores can be calculated either as a Summed Score (ranging from 6 to 42) or as a Mean Composite Score (ranging from 1.00 to 7.00) derived by summing all responses and dividing by 6.
• Normative Scoring Interpretations:
  • Mean Score 1.00 – 2.00 (Sum 6–12): Low / Negligible Proclivity. The individual strictly conforms to normative consumer ethics and rejects the exploitation of retail return policies.
  • Mean Score 2.01 – 4.00 (Sum 13–24): Moderate / Opportunistic Proclivity. The individual generally behaves ethically but possesses moderate rationalization potential under conditions of perceived retail unfairness, lax enforcement, or low sanction certainty.
  • Mean Score 4.01 – 7.00 (Sum 25–42): High / Active Fraudulent Proclivity. The individual actively embraces deshopping and wardrobing rationalizations, showing a persistent disposition to exploit return policies for personal material benefit.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Fraudulent Returning Tendency (FRT) scale was formally introduced and published in 2008 in the Journal of Retailing:

• Foundational Publication Year: 2008.
• Copyright Ownership: The original empirical manuscript and structural documentation are copyrighted by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University (NYU), Stern School of Business, which sponsors the Journal of Retailing.
• Academic and Research Usage Permissions: Under standard fair-use academic guidelines, researchers, graduate students, and university faculty may utilize the scale for non-commercial, non-profit academic research, pedagogical inquiries, and empirical scientific investigations without paying licensing fees, provided that formal APA citation is granted to the author (Lloyd C. Harris, 2008) and the publisher.
• Commercial and Organizational Application: Commercial organizations, corporate retail consulting firms, software developers designing return authorization algorithms, or commercial market research enterprises seeking to incorporate the scale or its derivatives into proprietary diagnostic tools, pre-employment screening instruments, or commercial software platforms must seek formal copyright permissions and licensing clearance through Elsevier’s RightsLink copyright clearance service or via direct consultation with the author.

12. References

Below is a comprehensive list of foundational and related academic references formatted according to the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition standard:

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104

Harris, L. C. (2008). Fraudulent return proclivity: An empirical analysis. Journal of Retailing, 84(4), 461–476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2008.09.003

Harris, L. C. (2010). Fraudulent consumer returns: Exploiting retailers’ return policies. European Journal of Marketing, 44(6), 730–747. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090561011032702

King, T., & Dennis, C. (2006). Unethical consumer behaviour: ‘Deshopping’—an analysis of the theory of planned behaviour. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 9(3), 282–296. https://doi.org/10.1108/13522750610671699

Muncy, J. A., & Vitell, S. J. (1992). Consumer ethics: An investigation of the ethical beliefs of the final consumer. Journal of Business Research, 24(4), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/0148-2963(92)90036-B

Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Rosenbaum, M. S., & Kuntze, R. (2003). The relationship between Harry Potter and ‘deshopping’: A study of consumer borrowing. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 11(3), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2003.11658498

Schmidt, R., Hennigs, N., Langner, S., & Wiedmann, K. P. (2015). Deshopping as consumer misbehavior: An overview of the phenomenon and its practical implications. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 32(4), 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-02-2015-1323

Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 664–670. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089195

13. Items of the Scale