Feds Bust Home Improvement Store Fraud Ring
Others Remain Under Investigation
Posted: 2:37 p.m. EST December 4, 2003
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.
Copyright 2003 by WSBTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.










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