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

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1376-1386
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• 2008

The purposes of this study were to explore the techniques of neutralization on unethical customer return behaviors, examine the differences in the neutralizations by customer characteristics, and examine the relationships of neutralizations with customer ethics, anomie, and impulsive behaviors. A total of 609 questionnaires were analyzed. Four factors including denial of injury/victim, condemning the condemners, denial of responsibility, and appeal to higher loyalties were extracted from the neutralization techniques. The neutralization techniques were not different by customer characteristics, but were negatively related with customer ethics and positively related with anomie and impulsive behaviors. The results indicate that the neutralization techniques are appropriate to understand unethical customer return behaviors in the Korean retail settings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1793-1802
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• 2007

This study examined the relationship between consumers' ethical ideologies and consumers' perceptions of fashion counterfeits. Forsyth's Ethics Position Questionnaire(EPQ) measuring consumers' ethical ideologies-- idealism and relativism -- was used. College students enrolled at a large university in a metropolitan area participated(N=314). There were no significant differences between counterfeit purchasers and non-purchasers on their ethical ideologies, while there were significant differences between these two groups on their perceptions toward two of the perceptions toward counterfeit factors: economic and psychological uncertainty. Idealism was not significantly related to participants' perceptions toward fashion counterfeit, while relativism was positively related only to participants' perceptions concerning the return-related uncertainty of fashion counterfeits. The results of a multiple regression revealed that consumers' economic, psychological, and return-related uncertainty were significant predictors of intent to buy counterfeit goods.