Teen gets 6 years in prison for exploiting online store’s refund policy in $570K fraud case

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A teenager in Shanghai received a six-year prison sentence for taking advantage of a flaw in the refund system of an online cosmetics store. They fraudulently earned over $570,000 through this scheme.

A teenager’s attempt to quickly earn some money backfired, resulting in a significant prison sentence after police discovered his plan.

A 17-year-old named Lu found a problem with the return process on a cosmetics website. The site requires customers to enter a tracking number for their returned package before they can get their money back.

The website didn’t check if the provided tracking numbers were valid, creating a flaw where people could potentially get refunds without sending items back. Lu exploited this loophole, falsely claiming returns on 11,900 orders and obtaining 4.76 million yuan (about $680,000) worth of products.

Lu discovered what to do with the large number of cosmetics: she resold them as ‘returned’ items on secondhand websites. This clever move earned her a substantial profit of 4.01 million yuan, equivalent to $574,000.

Shanghai teenager makes big bucks from site’s faulty return policy

Lu splurged on expensive clothes, new phones, and even shared some money with his friends after coming into some money… but his good fortune didn’t last.

So, the website finally caught on that something fishy was going on with all these returns and they reported it to the police. Turns out, I was the one behind those fake refunds! They arrested me in March 2024 after the investigators traced everything back to me.

In July 2025, Lu received a six-year prison sentence, which was reduced because of his age. According to VICE, similar cases typically result in ten-year sentences, but Lu received a lighter punishment since he was a minor when the crime occurred.

Chinese state media recently reported that a Shanghai court has scheduled sentencing for July 2025.

Social media in China is buzzing about the recent crime. Some people are strongly criticizing the teenager responsible, while others believe the website itself is to blame.

“He used his cleverness doing the wrong deed,” one said, as per the South China Morning Post.

Someone else pointed out that the platform failed to notice the flaw until after significant financial losses occurred.

A recent crime story out of China reveals that scamming American phone users with text messages has become incredibly lucrative, with Chinese criminal groups allegedly earning over $1 billion in 2025.

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2026-01-20 00:19