Free tool
How fraud-proof is your return policy?
Repeat refunders read return policies the way locksmiths look at locks. Enter your store domain and get an instant A to F grade against the loopholes they exploit, with a copy-paste fix for each one.
Free, no signup. We read the public policy page on your store, nothing else.
The 10 loopholes we grade against
Each check maps to a real abuse pattern we see in refund data: worn-once returns, bracketing, empty-box returns, repeat refunding, and item-not-received claims.
01Right-to-refuse clause
Without it, you have no policy basis to decline a customer's 14th refund.
02Receive-and-inspect before refund
The gap behind empty-box returns and items that never ship back.
03Condition requirements
No unworn-with-tags language means a worn dress can come back as new, inside your own policy.
04Return window length
Windows past 90 days turn returns into a free rental program. For EU and UK customers, anything under 14 days is below the legal minimum.
05Proof of purchase
Returns without an order reference invite receipt fraud.
06Photo evidence for damage claims
Arrived-broken claims are the cheapest fraud to file when no photo is needed.
07Item-not-received process
Without tracking-review language, every lost-package claim defaults to a refund.
08Non-returnable carve-outs
Personalised items, perishables, and opened hygiene products need explicit exclusions. For US customers you can also exclude gift cards and final sale items, as long as the policy says so; for EU and UK customers, sale items stay returnable.
09Free-return friction
Unlimited free returns with zero deterrent is an invitation to bracketing.
10An exchange path
Fraudsters want money back, not a different size. Exchanges filter them.
For stores that sell to the EU or the UK, we also compare the policy with consumer law: the cancellation period and its start date, the send-back deadline, sale-item exclusions, restocking fees, condition-based denial, discretionary refusal, refund deadlines, and the alternative of receiving the item or proof of shipment.
How the grader works
Shopify publishes every store's refund policy at a standard public URL. We read that one page, extract the policy text, and check it against the ten protections above and the consumer rules for the detected markets. We do not crawl your store, access your admin, or store the policy text. The grade is heuristic: it tells you what your policy says, not what your team enforces.
A hardened policy is your first filter, and most stores can fix every finding in ten minutes with the suggested clauses. What a policy cannot do is recognize the customer who refunds 40% of their orders, the address with four accounts behind it, or the claim pattern that only shows up across months of refund history. That is what RefundSentry does, sitting alongside your existing returns stack.
Consumer law follows your customer's market. We read which markets you sell to from the policy's language and from your storefront's country, currency and country storefronts, then check the policy against the rules for the EU (with France), the UK and the US. Every clause we suggest names the rule it follows, and when we cannot tell where you sell, it is written to hold for EU and UK customers. This is information, not legal advice: have a lawyer confirm your policy for the countries you sell to.