That hasn't been my experience. Policies may have changed, although I'm not sure how they'd know if purchased something using a credit card if you don't have your receipt.

Most places typically will provide the refund if you have the merchandise and an ID. The ID helps loss prevent determine if someone's returning an abnormally large amount of goods, but there's no shortage of mules for this kind of scam.

I'm not in the loss prevention field (anymore), and my knowledge of these sorts of scams is a few years old.