Builds return-fraud tooling for Shopify merchants. Spent August 2026 collecting and re-testing real AI-edited damage photos from public refund-scam reports before writing a line of detection code.
How buyers use AI image editors to fake damage on real product photos and claim refunds, the public evidence that it is happening, and what merchants can actually do about it.
Seven practical checks — metadata, error level analysis, noise, frequency artefacts, duplicate matching, physical logic and a second angle — for deciding whether a refund photo was edited by AI.
Shopify's free native returns flow collects no photos, and the returns apps that do collect them gate API access behind $99–$155/month plans. Here is what that leaves small merchants with.
