Americans received hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of gifts yesterday — and there's a good chance we don't want a lot of them.
Some $58.5 billion in gifts will be returned this year, the National Retail Federation found in its annual returns survey, down more than $4 billion from last year.
But at the same time, fraudulent returns are on the rise, up about $500 million year-on-year.
(Among the examples of fraud listed by the NRF are counterfeit receipts, stolen merchandise returns and returns of merchandise bought with "stolen tender" like ripped-off credit cards).
On a percentage basis, the numbers are even more stark.
Holiday sales returns are expected to fall about half a percentage point in 2013, but return fraud is up 1.2 percentage points.