[2ndround]

Refunding has always been mundane and considered a bit of a break from actual social engineering in a lot of people's eyes. Of course in terms of profitability its certainly up there but given it requires a capital investment before you can recoup the costs, it's sometimes not viable for social engineers that lack that capability.

You're correct in saying that nowadays refunding is 9 times out of 10 just a simple FTID. It has really taken away from the creative approaches used in past although it is somewhat understandable given that FTID yields some of the highest success rates due to retailer's inabilities to combat it. The move to FTID methodology is also somewhat justified as often when a store became popular, it would be come inundated with DNA or EB requests which swiftly saturated the method, whereas FTID is much more difficult to prevent, even if they know they are being defrauded.

I would also say from personal experience that performing warranty exploitation that involves a large degree of social engineering is the most satisfying when you get your payoff. I remember back in the day obtaining my first phone, which had an email thread of around 30+ emails, was the best feeling ever. Unfortunately I also believe you reach a point where the adrenaline rush of social engineering wears off and that is the point where most high level users quit the scene.

One thing I've noticed is the carefree nature of some of these refunders. They see that they can make a profit off these newbies and tell them to make 10K+ orders and then you have someone who's never even managed to get a refund for $10 speaking to a company about getting a refund for a $6000 laptop. I've been around for a  bit and even I don't feel comfortable playing around with anything 5K+ myself let alone letting some guy who's probably on some radar doing it for me and possibly leaving me stranded to deal with it if it fails with no experience. I don't solely blame the refunders, I think there are some very greedy people out there too and that's just how it is.

this and I worry the most about the fact they are using scripts and even if they don't you would think the reps would start to pick up on the similar language/logic being used again and again for different refunds.

The amounts they claim to be able to do are impressive, IF they can.
Would be curious to spend a day with a full time refunder to see what they do.