Current Events > Guy ripped Home Depot off for $300k in fake returns

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A Connecticut man was given nearly $300,000 in fraudulent Home Depot credit by walking into stores in several states, taking expensive doors and then returning them without a receipt, federal prosecutors allege.
Alexandre Henrique Costa-Mota, 26, of West Hartford, Connecticut, was detained without bail after a judge entered not-guilty pleas on his behalf this week in federal court in Rhode Island to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. attorney's office in Providence said in a statement Wednesday.
An email seeking comment was left with Costa-Mota's attorney.
Costa-Mota dressed to appear like a contractor and entered the stores empty-handed, prosecutors allege in court documents. He would then load a door or several doors worth hundreds of dollars each onto a lumber cart, take them to the service department and return them without a receipt, authorities said.
He was given a store credit that he later redeemed at other stores, prosecutors said.
If the return was denied, he would take the doors without paying and return them at another store, prosecutors said.
Home Depot stores in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey were involved. The defendant was given about 370 fraudulent store credits between June 2021 and February 2022, prosecutors said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/alexandre-henrique-costa-mota-connecticut-home-depot-door-return-scam/

He did this 370 times in 9 months!? That's more than once a day on average. How did he not get caught much earlier.

Dang

I really hope he doesn't fuck up their return policy. Cuz it's so painless to go in and return shit because you bought too much or the wrong size >_>

Simon_Gruber posted...

How did he not get caught much earlier.

Customer service apathy combined with managers telling you to always make the customer happy

All this for store credit, too. Was the guy looking for raw materials to build a house with all that credit? Like, whats the endgame?

Pretty good idea. Should have stopped while he was ahead tho

Wow that's ballsy. How did they not notice him come in with nothing and then suddenly have expensive doors to return?

Simon_Gruber posted...

How did he not get caught much earlier.

They probably have a "dont question the scamming customer" policy in most places.

Im guessing that some of them got sick of doing refunds that day and shut him down, so he slipped out the garden area with the doors.

This story makes Home Depot look stupid af. They should have just kept this quite and not told anyone, cause damn this doesn't make them look good at all.

Lmao. I can't believe he thought he wouldn't get caught and that he actually got away with it for so long.

metallica846 posted...

Most places make you show an ID for a return with no receipt and limit how many you can do. Is Home Depot that stupid?

I know Walmart does that. We had to return a Lego set my kid got for his birthday because it was a duplicate and I had to show my ID to get the store credit.

Sometimes people throw out good stuff, but most time they don't, so if we see some nice stuff at home depot. Trevor goes up, he grabs the stuff and basically he's doing them a favour, he's throwin it out for them, put it to the curb, that's putting out their garbage, that's not stealing, you can't get charged for that. He's not taking it, he's just taking it from there, and bringing it down to the curb...once it's at the curb it's garbage, so I come along and I take it, I'm just taking people's garbage, that's not stealing, so if he's not stealing and I'm not stealing, who's stealing? nobody, it's perfectly fair."

maybe he just thought the doors were garbage lol /s

That's a lot of doors.

Simon_Gruber posted...

How did he not get caught much earlier.

People kept telling him that there were so many doors open for him, so he took it literally.

As someone that works there with crappy management/workers fucking good.

You gotta know when to stop.