It doesn't make it less ridiculous, and doesn't change the incentives it sets up. Since the losses are spread across a bunch of (often small) businesses, scenarios like this where the crime goes unresearched are the norm.
I'm not asking for sympathy here, I'm explaining why it's a free for all. It would be fairly easy for the credit card companies to aggregate the data and revoke cards from these people (when there's a pattern) because they have that visibility. Or, if revocation is too hard, give me back a "return fraud risk score" when I do a pre-auth....even if said score has a very high threshold before it shows. But they have no reason to, because it doesn't hurt them in any way.
I'm not asking for sympathy here, I'm explaining why it's a free for all. It would be fairly easy for the credit card companies to aggregate the data and revoke cards from these people (when there's a pattern) because they have that visibility. Or, if revocation is too hard, give me back a "return fraud risk score" when I do a pre-auth....even if said score has a very high threshold before it shows. But they have no reason to, because it doesn't hurt them in any way.