ATLANTA -- Secret Service agents arrested three people Thursday on charges of defrauding Home Depot and Lowe's stores across the South out of $150,000 by switching the bar codes on rugs.

David Oliver, 34, of Hampton, Ga., his wife, Mindy Oliver, 38, and Marcus Abercombie, 33, of Duluth, Ga., allegedly took bar codes from cheaper items and affixed them to expensive rugs at Home Depot and Lowe's stores in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina.

They would then go through the checkout lines and leave with rugs worth hundreds of dollars for $29 each, authorities said.

Investigators said the three would later return the rugs at other Home Depot and Lowe's stores for a refund.

In Home Depot's case, the store routinely gives store credit instead of a cash refund. The thieves would take the store credit vouchers and sell them on eBay, authorities said.

Authorities are investigating at least a half-dozen other people in connection with the scheme.

Atlanta-based Home Depot is the nation's largest home improvement store chain. Wilkesboro, N.C.-based Lowe's, with about half as many stores, is the nation's second-largest.

"The Home Depot realizes the significant impact this kind of crime has on business in general," the company said in a statement. "We have put into place the necessary resources, both people and technology, to combat incidents like the one that just occurred."

A spokesman for Home Depot would not elaborate on those changes, saying the details would only help thieves.