“You can do it. We can help.” One Connecticut man had his own interpretation of Home Depot‘s well-intentioned tagline.
Alexandre Henrique Costa-Mota, 26, of Hartford has been arraigned on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud after he scored nearly $300,000 in Home Depot credit with a fraudulent door-return scheme that spanned stores in several states, AP News reported.
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Costa-Mota dressed as a contractor and walked in empty-handed, then put one door or several doors valued at hundreds of dollars onto a cart before heading to the service department and returning them without a receipt, prosecutors allege in court documents.
If Costa-Mota was denied a return at one store, he would take the doors without paying and return them to a different location; between June 2021 and June 2022, he racked up 370 fraudulent store credits worth $297,332, according to authorities.
Home Depot’s return policy allowing customers to return purchases without a receipt helped Costa-Mota pull it off.
“We require a valid driver’s license or government-issued photo identification for non-receipted returns and returns generated from purchases made with The Home Depot store credits,” the company’s website states. “The Home Depot uses a third-party refund verification system.”
It appears Costa-Mota used his own ID just once before presenting multiple fraudulent licenses with other names, per court records.
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Home Depot isn’t the only big-box retailer with a generous return policy that puts customers first: Kohl’s, J.C. Penney, and Walmart also accept purchases back without a receipt, according to NerdWallet.