In Salt Lake City, the retailer worked with the state's attorney general's office over several years to close down a $1.5 million fraud case that involved seven pawnshops and a crime ring that was stealing and reselling the stolen goods.Ĭhris Walden, a special agent with the Utah Attorney General's Office, said eBay identified 34 Utah pawnshops where suspected stolen merchandise was being sold, both out of the shop itself and on eBay. Utah is one state where Home Depot, eBay and law enforcement have been working together to identify and prosecute organized retail crime rings. The felony threshold is the dollar value of goods stolen that determines if charges are a felony or a misdemeanor. Glenn said he has seen a correlation between higher rates of organized retail crime and areas of the country where the dollar amount for felony thresholds have been raised. In other words, higher prices for honest shoppers.
"But if gets to a point where we cannot continue to do business this way, ultimately, we will have to pass it along." "We have been very good about not raising prices as a result of our shrink equation," said Scott Glenn, Home Depot vice president of asset protection. Lowe's shares, which have a market value of $90.3 billion, are also up about 27% in 2019. Disappointing third-quarter results have put pressure on the stock in recent days.
Home Depot shares, which have a market value of $239.3 billion, have climbed 27% this year. Not only is that bad for shareholders, but it can be bad for consumers. Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.While retailers account for a certain level of shrinkage as part of the normal course of business, once it surpasses a threshold, it starts to hurt profits. He now has until July 11 to report to the Bureau of Prisons to begin his sentence. The scammer agreed to plead guilty earlier this year, and yesterday the judge sentenced him to 24 months in federal prison, along with ordering him to pay $1,139,076 to Home Depot. In all, this scam took in an estimated $1.12 million through at least 18 different Home Depot stores. In other words, he would take receipts for items he didn’t buy, falsely claim that he should get a refund on the sales tax, rinse and repeat. Prosecutors say he would go from store to store getting the same refund multiple times from the same receipt. He would then go to various Home Depot stores with receipts that he claimed were for purchases made by one of these non-existent businesses and get refunds on the sales tax that he contended should not have been paid. However, the companies he registered either no longer existed or never existed in the first place.Īs part of this process, he provided Home Depot with Texas taxpayer identification numbers for these bogus businesses, but again these state ID numbers were either fakes or expired. 5.16.17 1:51 PM EDT By Chris Morran saving more doing (time) home depot crime news scams scamalamadingdong texasĪ Texas man who used Home Depot’s program for tax-exempt business purchases to scam more than $1.1 million from the retailer has been sentenced to two years in federal prison and ordered to repay all his ill-gotten gains.Īccording to a grand jury indictment, the scammer started ripping off Home Depot in 2012, when he began registering multiple companies through the Home Depot Tax Exempt ID program, which allows certain buyers to make purchases at the store without paying sales tax.