Latest news with #BillStewart
Business Insider
20-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Return fraud is running rampant
Bill Stewart, the owner of LI Toy and Game on Long Island, New York, estimates that he gets "screwed over" by return shenanigans twice a month. Customers falsely claim an item he shipped wasn't as described or doesn't work, or they send back something in much worse condition than how he released it. Recently, a customer returned a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine model kit after two weeks with the box open, the toy half assembled, and pieces missing. Given the condition, there was no way for him to resell it. "Went right into the trash," Stewart says. "The kid played with it, was probably too young for it." Adding up the price of the item itself, two-way shipping costs, and merchant fees charged by the third-party platform he used to sell the item — Walmart Marketplace, in this case — Stewart estimates the exchange resulted in a net loss of $55. For the big guys, he recognizes that's nothing, but for a small business like his, it's a hit, and one for which he has no recourse. "With Walmart, the customer's always right," he says. The ability to return an item you've purchased has become a core part of the shopping experience. Customers may buy a few more items than they would otherwise because it's a no-harm, no-foul situation on returns. Backsies are allowed. But retailers say consumers are engaging in too many backsies. Some are committing outright return fraud — shipping back empty boxes, swapping out different items, or claiming a package never arrived. Others are abusing generous return policies by attempting to send back items after days, weeks, and even months of use. And while it's tempting to blame organized criminals, retailers and return logistics operators say a lot of everyday consumers are the culprits, too. People are strapped for cash, they've been trained to expect super loose return policies, and they don't feel bad about pulling one over on a faceless company. "Consumers who would never go into a physical store and take an item off without paying and stealing are actually being trained socially that it's actually acceptable to take advantage of retailers in these small ways," says David Morin, the vice president of client strategy at Narvar, a retail logistics company. "They think it's OK, right? Stick it to the man." America is becoming a nation of small-time return fraudsters, one box of fibs at a time. A recent report from Appriss Retail and Deloitte found that the total value of merchandise returned in the US reached $685 billion in 2024. Fifteen percent of that — $103 billion — was fraudulent, the report said, meaning the product shouldn't have qualified for a refund under the retailer's policies. America is becoming a nation of small-time return fraudsters, one box of fibs at a time. Morin says it's hard to suss out who, specifically, is responsible for fraudulent behavior — organized criminals versus everyday consumers — but it's clear that a wider range of people are partaking than you may expect. In 2024, Narvar ran a survey of US consumers that found that more than half of consumers admitted to engaging in fraudulent returns at least once. In a separate 2023 survey of US online shoppers from Loop Returns, a returns management software company, nearly four in 10 people admitted to having engaged in returns policy abuse themselves or knowing of someone who had. "There seems to be this mentality that consumers feel entitled to do it," says Jessica Meher, the senior vice president of marketing at Loop. The spectrum of returns mischief is quite broad, and your mileage may vary on what's acceptable versus what's abuse. On the more benign end is " bracketing," when consumers buy the same item in different sizes or colors and send back whatever doesn't work. It's a logistical headache and bad for the environment, but it's generally above board. Inching into the fraud territory is the practice known as " wardrobing," which Thomas Borders, the vice president of operations for Inmar Supply Chain, a reverse logistics company recently acquired by DHL, says is when consumers treat return windows as "free rentals." The practice will sound familiar to a lot of shoppers: You buy a dress or a pair of shoes for a special occasion, you wear it to said special occasion, and then you return it and get your money back. "In an effort to avoid customer dissatisfaction, retailers will process the consumers' refund before items are properly assessed and any damage identified," Borders says. "This results in premature refunds, leaving retailers with very little recourse." E-commerce makes this sort of return abuse even easier to engage in than brick-and-mortar shopping — warehouse employees often don't closely scrutinize every single item to make sure it's in tip-top condition like employees at a retail counter might. In a digital world, the retailer will probably see the wine stains on the dress you wore to that wedding only when it's too late, if they ever notice at all. There seems to be this mentality that consumers feel entitled to do it. On the more nefarious side of the equation, consumers lie and say a package never arrived or was stolen, or they stick a different product back in the box. Morin says Narvar had a client during the pandemic who started to see a trend of consumers returning three empty CD cases to them. Someone online figured out the cases weighed the same as some of their core items, so when the return box initially got weighed in by the carrier, no red flags went up that it was the wrong item inside. Once the box was actually opened, the refund had already gone out. Another trick is when consumers tamper with return labels in order to send empty packages to the wrong destination, so they can just claim it got lost if the retailer tries to check. They keep the product, and they get an automatic refund when the package gets put in the mail. Hilary Koziol, who runs the Cellar Sellers, an online consignment business, has dealt with her fair share of dishonest customers. She recently sold a sealed box of trading cards to someone on eBay for hundreds of dollars, and the buyer claimed Koziol actually sent a box with a pair of jeans inside, returned those, and demanded a refund for the trading cards. She wound up opening a case with the US Postal Service over it. On another occasion, a customer bought a $50 dress from her on Depop and, in return, sent back an old, makeup-stained version of the same style. "You find that happens a lot with clothing," she says. When she encounters these problems, she disputes them with the Postal Service and the platforms she's selling on, and it's "kind of a crapshoot" whether she wins or loses, though as she sells more stuff and accumulates more reviews, the platforms tend to side with her more. "Especially if it's a larger-value item," she says, "it's impacting my business a ton." A lot of people get ideas online and on social media for different return tricks they can pull. It took me about five minutes of searching on TikTok to come across videos with tips and advice for getting free refunds from Amazon. There's tons of content about Target's Cat & Jack kids line's generous one-year return policy that leads many parents to try their hand at returning well-worn clothes. On Reddit, there's a forum where people compare notes on Costco returns, including users asking about the chances the company might accept a furniture return five years after it was purchased or exchange a Christmas wreath after the leaves start to brown. There are also hot debates about which REI returns may count as abuse. "It's almost like coupon sites where consumers have been trained to look for coupons and discounts," Meher says. "That's starting to happen with what companies offer loose return policies." I don't think my social circle is the most crime-prone group in the world, but the more I chat with people in my life about return fraud and abuse, especially in online shopping, the more I realize how prevalent it is. A coworker told me about a friend of theirs who'd returned a box of rocks to a retailer instead of a television. A friend told me they'd never steal — only to acknowledge they'd once returned a big-ticket item they broke to Amazon and claimed it arrived broken, while their partner regularly sends back items they've worn. Another friend said that whenever they send back used items to replace new ones and get the refund, they make sure the seller is a big corporation, not a small mom-and-pop shop. I tried to do the bracketing thing with two sets of curtains last summer but failed. I was too lazy to return the set I didn't want within the return window, so it's accumulating dust under my bed. To many people, low-level return fraud feels like a victimless crime — they're not exactly losing sleep over a giant corporation losing a few dollars here and there. People assume retailers don't really care that much, since they'll often send a refund before getting the item back, if they bother to recollect an item at all. Companies have also given people such a long leash on accepting returns that consumers may not blink at hauling grass shears smeared with clippings back to the Target counter after six months of use. Megan Wyatt, the owner of Wit & Whimsy Toys, a brick-and-mortar retailer in California, says the lax return policies the big guys offer customers have been a headache for her. "They'll just take pretty much any return, it feels like, these days. And so customers feel like they can do that at small businesses as well," she says. Her store has to essentially "train customers that you can't expect to return things at a small business the way that you would at Target, Walmart, Amazon, places like that." Retailers big and small aren't having a good time with return fraud and are cracking down. Many are axing free returns, tightening return windows, or otherwise implementing stricter returns policies. Companies such as REI and ASOS have started to ban certain customers over return abuse. Some retailers are using aggregated data to try to identify bad actors, whether they're a previous customer or not. If a consumer is continually taking advantage of return policies at X retailer, Y retailer may know even before they click to buy. Meher, from Loop, says personalized return policies are starting to become more common, too. "So, being able to incentivize good customers and giving them good return policies and disincentivize bad consumers and people who return a lot and giving them different return windows or different return policies," she says. "That is also starting to become more important as retailers look into, 'How do I make sure that I don't piss off my good customers?'" Across the consumer economy, there's a pervasive us-versus-them sentiment between companies and their customers. Many consumers feel like businesses — especially the big ones — are swindling them and squeezing them for every penny, so when they have a chance to strike back, why not? Maybe that means putting a brick in a return box and hoping nobody notices it's not an iPad. Or maybe it's just seeing that package you'd already declared stolen arrived three days late and not trying too hard to give back that refund that already came through.
The Citizen
05-07-2025
- Sport
- The Citizen
Discovery Primary triumphs in West Rand league
Discovery Primary School's U13 soccer team has been crowned the champion of the West Rand Schools Association League after defeating Florida Primary with a 4–2 score in a thrilling final match that took place earlier in June at Pinnacle College. The league, which featured 21 primary schools from across the West Rand, pushed the young players to their limits. However, the Discovery Primary School team remained at the top of the game, once again proving that they are a force to be reckoned with. According to head coaches Siphesihle Mabaso and Lesley Williams, the team worked very hard, training even during school holidays, and their dedication has paid off. 'It means so much to us coaches to see such pure talent on the field. Not every learner is an academic; however, with soccer, they get to prove themselves and break generational curses. We feel immense pride,' they expressed. 'We trained even during school holidays, and the brotherhood formed between the boys is amazing.' Zaneal Francis was a standout player, scoring most goals throughout the tournament, while Owami Mtetwa was named the match of the league. The team's achievement is not limited to this victory. One of their talented players was selected to participate in the prestigious Bill Stewart tournament in Durban, and the team was runner-up in the John TT Cup in March, and they were champions of the Knockout Cup in 2024. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Houston man locked in bitter feud with neighboring renters — but homeowner argues he's harassing paying guests
When Bill Stewart bought his home in Houston's upscale Walden neighborhood, he expected peace and quiet alongside an idyllic lake. What he didn't expect was a battle of signs, arguments with neighbors and a cease-and-desist letter. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 5 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) His neighbor, he says, turned a suburban home into a revolving door of short-term renters — and Stewart isn't having it. 'It just seemed like we'd moved into a mob neighborhood of scum,' Stewart told Houston news station KPRC. 'You're concerned for your safety. You go to bed at night and there's 20 people out there. Who are they?' But the property owner, through their attorney, argues they and other short-term renters in the area are well within their rights, and that it's Stewart who's harassing paying guests. Who's right? At the heart of the dispute is whether Stewart's actions crossed a line. Stewart received a cease-and-desist letter alleging that he has harassed guests, recorded them without consent and intimidated them with menacing signage — including signs on his fence that say: 'AIRBNB GO HOME' 'You are DESPISED' and 'You are INTRUDERS in a RESIDENTIAL NEGHBORHOOD' Read more: This is how American car dealers use the '4-square method' to make big profits off you — and how you can ensure you pay a fair price for all your vehicle costs For passersby, the scene now resembles something out of a bitter political campaign rather than dispute among neighbors in an enviable Houston suburb. For his part, Stewart insists he's simply protecting his home and community. He says the rental has brought strangers into the neighborhood who act as if they're on vacation — not in someone else's backyard. Short-term rentals, typically defined as properties rented for fewer than 30 consecutive days, have exploded in popularity. In the U.S., the short-term vacation rental market was valued at nearly $70 billion in 2024, with an expected growth rate of 7.4% through 2030. But in Texas, such properties remain a legal gray area. Texas has no statewide law banning or comprehensively regulating such rentals. Instead, regulation of the short-term rental industry is left to local governments, resulting in a patchwork of rules across cities. A 2022 Texas Supreme Court ruling found that a homeowners association (HOA) could not use standard 'residential use only' deed restrictions to prohibit short-term rentals. The court found that unless deed restrictions specifically ban short-term rentals, simply requiring 'residential use' does not bar owners from renting their properties for short periods. Attorney Mahsa Monshizadegan told KPRC that disputes arise over short-term rental properties and otherwise 'when one neighbor tries to enforce their own standard of a neighborhood on everyone else' — particularly in large cities like Houston. 'How you resolve the issue matters,' she added. 'All disputes should be resolved through good faith and not like unilateral enforcement of their own demands.' She added that it would have been better if Stewart had approached the owner of the property directly rather than expressing his frustration with the short-term rental guests. Operating a short-term rental may be legal, but it comes with responsibilities. Hosts must be aware of local zoning codes, occupancy limits, noise regulations and tax requirements. Cities like Houston, Austin and San Antonio have passed ordinances to regulate or restrict short-term rentals. In Houston, short-term rental owners must respect the city's rules around noise and sound, neighborhood protection, waste and litter and fire codes. Houston is also launching a hotline people can call with complaints about short-term rentals to have the appropriate city department follow up. Short-term rental hosts in Texas are often responsible for collecting hotel occupancy taxes and registering with the state. Violating those rules could open owners up to fines or lawsuits, but the rules stop short of outright bans. Even with evidence of rule-breaking, the better path may be cooperation rather than conflict. Hosts can ease tension by screening guests carefully, enforcing strict house rules and communicating openly with nearby residents. Sharing a phone number in case of problems or limiting large gatherings can go a long way toward keeping the peace. Meanwhile, neighbors who feel blindsided can try engaging in a civil conversation before turning to lawyers or public protest. If both parties come to the table with goodwill, they may find common ground. Mediation through an HOA or neighborhood group can also provide a neutral space for resolution. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
San Francisco Chronicle
18-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump wants to let chain saws loose in California national forests. Here's how it could go
The Trump administration is calling in the chain saws at scores of national forests, including the 18 in California, hoping to ramp up timber production in places that millions of Americans visit each year. But the effort will only get so far. Despite fears of vicious clear-cutting, forestry experts say too many things are working against today's timber trade to expect a vast expansion of logging, especially in California, whether it's the forests around Lake Tahoe, near Yosemite or at Big Sur. For starters, the industry has lost capacity to process wood. There are also issues with the trees, which have been degraded by wildfires and drought or set aside for protection. Additionally, recent federal staffing cuts are likely to hobble the Forest Service's ability to prepare logging contracts. 'Operationally, they're not going to get much done,' said Bill Stewart, emeritus forestry specialist at UC Berkeley. The inability to significantly increase timber operations, while sparing trees, comes with downsides. Foremost may be a failure to reduce wildfire risk. Targeted tree removal, though often controversial, is sometimes used as a tactic to make wildlands less combustible by thinning overgrown vegetation. With so much of the West burning in recent years, the need to safeguard forests and nearby communities is indisputable. California has seen nine of its 10 biggest blazes in the past decade. Just months ago, parts of Los Angeles were obliterated by flames. The Trump administration cites fire danger as one of the reasons for wanting more trees cut, alongside wanting to 'fully exploit' public lands for wood supplies and revive the domestic timber industry. 'Increasing logging, in and of itself, is not a terrible threat,' said John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for healthy mountain landscapes. 'If it is consistently (done) in a fashion that keeps environmental protection measures, it may result in a more fire-resistant forest.' The president's push for logging comes alongside a handful of other major initiatives intended to harden forests to fire, each of which may involve removing trees. They include the bipartisan Fix our Forests Act and Save our Sequoias Act, both being taken up by Congress. In addition, Gov. Gavin Newsom is directing expedited fire-prevention work, including tree removal, on state and private lands. Many environmental groups remain wary of these efforts. Despite headwinds facing the timber industry, the groups say profit-driven logging companies will find ways to use the policies to cut down high-value trees that have little to do with fire danger. Even a small amount of logging, they say, can sometimes cause great damage to forests and ecosystems. A steady decline. Then, an executive order President Donald Trump's executive order to boost logging was issued March 1 and has since crystalized into a U.S. Forest Service directive to increase timber production by 25% over five years. Plans for how and where the additional logging will occur are yet to be drafted. Forest Service officials, though, confirmed that all of California's national forests will play a role in meeting the target. The agency manages about 20 million acres in California, from the Cleveland National Forest near Mexico to the Klamath National Forest along the Oregon border. The federal lands, which are obliged to serve several purposes, including recreation, wilderness and commercial activity, constitute more than half of the state's forests. 'Active management has long been at the core of Forest Service efforts to address the many challenges faced by the people and communities we serve,' agency officials said in an emailed response to the Chronicle about the proposed increase in timber production. While logging is a staple in national forests, the practice has subsided considerably in recent decades. Nationwide, timber sales on agency lands averaged about 3 billion board feet annually over the past few years compared to almost four times that amount in the logging heydays of the 1970s and '80s, federal data show. The drop in sales has come with a decline in infrastructure. In California, there are about 30 medium-to-large sawmills today, down from more than 100 last century. Most of the existing mills have been retooled to process smaller trees. Scott Stephens, a professor of fire ecology and forestry at UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, said the industry simply doesn't have the capacity to quickly rebound. He said a few mills in California's far north may be able to increase output but that does little good for the rest of the state. 'They've actually tried putting (logs) on train cars and shipping them to Northern California or all the way up to Oregon, and it turned out to be fiscally implausible,' he said. Biomass plants, which turn wood into energy and have been lauded as an alternative way to bring trees to market, are yet to prove viable on a large scale. Even if the timber industry was able to process more trees, logging companies wouldn't necessarily source the additional wood from national forests. The industry has increasingly shifted to private lands for supplies, with federal lands now accounting for less than 10% of the wood produced in California, compared to more than 40% in the 1980s. Among the reasons that federal lands have fallen out of favor are that many high-value trees have burned or been marred by insects and disease, or they remain off-limits to loggers or are too hard to get to. The smaller, more accessible trees aren't worth the cost of cutting. Some forests, including the Los Padres National Forest, which is home to Big Sur, and the Angeles National Forest in Southern California haven't seen significant interest from logging companies in decades. The challenge of turning things around on federal lands would likely be complicated by staff reductions at the Forest Service. The Trump administration, as part of a broad effort to streamline government, has enacted layoffs, early retirements and forced leaves. The number of employees lost at the 35,000-person Forest Service is unclear, with union officials initially estimating that 10% of the workforce was cut though some workers have since been reinstated and others have accepted buyouts. Even before the new administration, the agency was short staffed. More reductions are expected. While logging in national forests is generally done by private companies, federal employees select the sites, bid out the projects, manage the permitting and keep tabs on the work — all responsibilities that would be slowed with fewer scientists and forestry technicians. Already, staff cuts are prompting forest managers to plan for fewer recreation services. The largest logging company in California, Sierra Pacific Industries, declined an interview with the Chronicle to discuss the prospects for timber production under the new administration. George Gentry, the senior vice president of the trade group California Forestry Association, acknowledged that the industry faces challenges but said he welcomes the overtures at both the federal and state levels to support logging and forest restoration. What exactly this will mean for timber production, he said, depends on how the policies play out. A war on red tape Last month, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins set the stage for expedited approvals of logging projects by declaring an emergency across 113 million acres of national forests, citing wildfires, disease and insect infestation. The designated area represents 59% of the agency's total lands. Forest Service officials have since detailed how new timber proposals on emergency lands will be advanced through scaled-back environmental reviews, public input and expert consultation, when legally possible. While it's unclear whether the streamlined approval process will spur more logging, the Trump administration isn't alone in deeming red tape an obstacle to forestry work. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle, wanting to do more to address the wildfire crisis, are pushing to fast-track approvals of tree projects. Both the Fix our Forests Act, with bipartisan authorship that includes Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and the Save our Sequoias Act, similarly sponsored by Democrats and Republicans, call for comprehensive forest management strategies on federal lands. In doing so, they codify rollbacks of project reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act for a range of activities. These include creating fuel breaks, proactively burning flammable vegetation and cutting down trees. (The Trump administration's agenda is focused almost solely on cutting down trees.) Newsom in March issued an emergency proclamation that supports a similar multifaceted approach to confronting wildfires on state-governed lands. Issued on the same day as Trump's executive order on timber production, the directive suspends provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act and Coastal Act to accelerate forestry projects. A raft of environmental groups, which includes the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity, is concerned not only about the ecological harm that can come with efforts to sidestep regulation but that much of the intended forestry work, particularly removing trees, won't temper wildfire danger. It's a subject of increasing debate among scientists. 'Logging is not going to curb fires, not in the era of climate change,' said Chad Hanson, research ecologist and director of the John Muir Project. 'It tends to make them burn faster and hotter and toward towns.' Studies have shown that active timber sites can readily carry flames, as they did during the massive 2021 Dixie Fire. In many logged areas, the larger, fire-resistant trees have been removed while the smaller trees that replace them are more susceptible to burning. Also, tree removal can leave forests hotter and windier and hence more prone to an extreme fire, especially as the planet warms. At the same time, studies have shown that many forests are dangerously overgrown, largely due to decades of putting out wildfires that would have otherwise cleared vegetation, and that selective logging would reduce the threat. 'Excess timber will come out of the forest in only two ways: Either we will carry it out, or nature will burn it out,' said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-El Dorado Hills, who represents parts of the Sierra Nevada and is a co-sponsor of both the Fix our Forests Act and Save our Sequoias Act. The congressman supports Trump's order for more logging. Stephens, who researches wildfire prevention methods at UC Berkeley, said logging can be good or bad for a forest, depending on how it's done. 'The untreated forest is vulnerable to calamity. If you go in there and just focus on restoration and trying to reduce surface fuels, you can make it better,' he said. 'But if you go in there and say we need to cut this many board feet, you miss' the point. While opposition to logging is inevitable, some environmental groups have warmed to the idea as part of a holistic approach to improving forest conditions and lessening fire risk. The National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense Fund and Save the Redwoods League are among those that are supportive of an all-of-the-above strategy. Each is backing at least one of the forestry bills in Congress. The directives issued by the Trump administration, however, have not found favor with the environmental community. Many groups see the president's interest in wildfire safety as simply a pretext to do more commercial logging. Stephens said he's not 'alarmed' by the push for logging, underscoring the logistical constraints facing the timber industry. He's happy to see any fire-mitigation strategies get off the ground at this point, after years with little progress improving forest health and more wildfires. 'Look at what we've endured,' he said. 'The costs are so high. The restoration of our forests is paramount. I just don't know what else to say. We need to address the condition of our forest.'
Edmonton Journal
03-05-2025
- Sport
- Edmonton Journal
Habs Mailbag: Makes sense for Canadiens to keep David Savard around
Article content Who would you want the Habs to acquire as the second-line centre? Bill Stewart Sam Bennett would be the free-agent centre at the top of my list, but the 28-year-old who had 25-26-51 totals this season with the Florida Panthers — along with 90 penalty minutes — and was a key player for Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off will definitely be getting a lot of offers, including from U.S. teams that have no state taxes. Other centres who can become unrestricted free agents this summer include the Toronto Maple Leafs' John Tavares and Brock Nelson of the Colorado Avalanche. Tavares is 34 and Nelson is 33, but they are still productive players and could add valuable experience to the young Canadiens on short-term contracts. Tavares would like to stay in Toronto in part because he has three young children and extended family there, but Montreal isn't very far from Toronto if the Maple Leafs don't want to keep him. Canadiens GM Kent Hughes has worked hard trying to make Montreal a destination free agents will be interested in. It will be interesting to see how that plays out this summer.
