• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.32 no.9
• /
• pp.1356-1365
• /
• 2008

As Korean retailers are expanding their return policies, customer abuse and fraud behaviors are increasing. This study attempts to understand customers' unethical return behaviors in the Korean retailing. As an exploratory approach, the study identifies behavioral patterns of unethical returns from retail employees' perspectives. A total of 168 cases collected from 112 individual interviews with retail employees are qualitatively analyzed. Unethical return behaviors are categorized into five groups: lenting/deshopping, product defects with customer faults, unreasonable compensation demands, selfish behaviors, and problem behaviors in the service encounter. The study indicates that a variety of unethical return behaviors are observed despite a short history of return policy in Korea, and renting/deshopping and product defects with customer faults are the most prevalent return abuse behaviors.