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Yeah, I'm not quite seeing how this works. This is supposed to take place in an actual Home Depot store? Doesn't the buyer walk out the door with his purchases that have apparently been billed to an account that isn't his? Payment by Western Union/wire is a giveaway that something isn't right here, but what's to force the buyer to pay after checkout, when he already has the goods in hand?
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I don’t get it either. The customer did walk out w the merchandise. The cashier did ring everything, call a number, and I assumed charged all the purchase onto someone’s account. Unless it’s some vindictive ex-employee w access to a company account, I don’t see how the cashier would have executed the transaction?
The only other thing I could think is if the guy on the phone has a bunch of Home Depot store-credit debit cards that are illegally gotten and he used that for the customer’s purchase over the phone at the cashiers? However, I don’t know if you can use a Home Depot debit card over the phone?
Also, Home Depot has a new policy that you need to present an ID to use the Home Depot debut card.
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I go to Home Depot ALOT - I don't remember seeing ANY cashier calling a third party for payment.
Why would they?
Depot can set you up with a in house credit card, a contractor's discount, other "in house" stuff.
What's in it for Home Depot???
OP - do you have a link for this scam? If it's real, there has to be a news article (reputable) about it.
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2S4P must be a Lib; wants that free stuff.
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If I were a true Liberal and wanted free stuff, I’d just loot it.
Like I said, I tried googling this scam but the closest thing I’ve come across is some data breaches. Maybe some hackers stole contractors accounts and are using them bogusly in this manner?
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It’s getting charged to a pro account.
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If you can't find it on google, it didn't happen. ;-)
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I had the same connection but with JcPenney. Idk how they do it. You can't beat the five finger discount. I look for merchandise that fell of the truck its good as new!
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They may use a stolen credit card to buy a virtual Homedepot gift card online. You can order by phone with the card. Then you keep the goods and keep your money.
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Maybe they are paying Home Depot in Canada and the exchange rate yields the discount?
lol
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The latest SCAM I have been subject to -
Listed on a webpage as being on that organizations board (small local kind of things mostly non-profit) you get an e-mail from the suppose to be President of the group asking you to go to some store and buy $1000.00 worth of gift cards.
Once purchased you take picture of the cards and the security numbers and send to this person. Person claims you will be paid back, hold onto receipt and give to them at the next board meeting.
Didn't fall for it but it was very convincing until you look at the person sending the e-mail actual e-mail address..
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I only give my personal and banking info to my distant relative from Nigeria so that I can get my inheritance from a wealthy uncle who passed away. Im expecting that deposit any day now. All other offers just seem shady to me.
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“5-finger discount”...I had to look that up. Pretty funny.
I’m super careful about email scans. Luckily I got burned w my old AOL account, and learned a valuable non-costly early. I got a security alert email that I had to change my password by logging into a portal in my email that looked like the AOL portal. It was a fake portal and they hacked into my account and sent all my contacts spam, including my grad school advisor. I can’t remember what the spam was but it was a bit embarrassing. Luckily my mistake wasn’t a financial scam.
Now whenever I get an bank, Apple, PayPal security alert, I always make sure I go thru the vendor’s actual webpage and portal to login rather than anything embedded in the email.
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Sounds like from reading the feedback, the scam works as follows:
Fraudster finds a willing customer and tells him he has access to big Home Depot 50% discounts because he’s some manager or volume customer. He tells customer to buy whatever customer wants from any Home Depot. After customer gets his bill rung up, customer tells cashier to call the Fraudster for payment. The fraudster must have acquired access to some Home Depot contractor Pro-account to either charge the customer’s purchase against the contractor’s credit, or as suggested the Fraudster charges bill to stolen credit cards used to buy Home Depot cards that can be charged over the phone. The customer then Western Union wires Fraudster money for 50% of the purchase. The Fraudster has now converted illicit credit cards into 50% cash. The customer gets the Home Depot goods at half price. The contractor w Pro-account might not even know his pro-account was used to essentially launder the illegal credit cards value into cash if it takes forever for authority to trace the fraudulent credit cards used to buy Home Depot cards.
I think Home Depot needs to eliminate over the phone payments. If customers want to pay remotely, then they need to do their entire transaction online. If a contractor pro-account holder wants his employee to charge purchases into pro-account, he needs to have a pro-account company business card.
I have a Home Depot business credit card that I allow my employee to use. It has his name and my business name on his Home Depot business cc.
Maybe we re all still wrong about how this scam works but it seems like not allowing phone payments would be a simple solution?
Then again, maybe Home Depot doesn’t care because it’s the original stolen credit cards that were used to buy Home Depot cards that take the loss and not Home Depot?
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its usually when they do BK fraud they open up home depot cards and they charge it on that account..
very common practice in Glendale home depot
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@2small4porn: That makes sense to me. The scammer gets 50% of the purchase price, which is still a pretty good haul on a large purchase. If they're working trade shows to find dupes, they're finding buyers who are going to spend a lot, not just going to restock on light bulbs. So they get a good return on the effort invested.
It still seems to me, though, that the weak point is counting on the buyer's honesty. I suppose a lot of marks are gullible enough to think it's legit and pay according to the agreement, even though they just got to walk out of Home Depot with a bunch of free stuff. But I don't see any mechanism for making sure that the buyer lives up to his end of the deal/scam.
So in the end, ironically, the mark could end up as the biggest beneficiary: He gets a load of free stuff, the original scammer ends up with nothing, and in the end the credit card company gets stuck with the loss.
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BK = Bankruptcy?
Not understanding how that’d work? If people filing Bankruptcy buys up a bunch of Home Depot cards to deplete their cash in bank accounts and hide these Home Depot cards for future use (ie hiding cash assets from creditors trying to collect) or sell them for cash at discount?)
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BK is bankruptcy
you find a some with good credit and apply for credit credit cards left and right (includes home depot) you have people with cc terminals who charge money on for 25% percent. they Max out your cards then you make full payment to those cards with fake check. You have few hours at night where your balance clears before the fake checks bounce within this time frame you charge it again and now you owe your cc company twice as much as your limit..
getting home depot card and buying stuff for others at 40% discount is a steal.. how do you think the Armenians and Israelis are building houses. (besides weed money laundry)
oh at the end they file stolen identity report work on cleaning your credit score ( take about 2-3 years) and back at it again..
while at it lets not forget how they also lease fancy cars that they dont make any payments for. after few month they take it to body shop have a major work order written up on it (no payments are made) body shop puts a lean on the car so when the bank gets a hold of the car they usually surrender or sells it back to the body shop to clear the lean. this explain growing number of exotic and luxury cars you see on the streets
there are so much more thats happening right now its not even funny IDIL loans EDD fraud...
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EDD fraud. Hmm...
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Dang from getting exotic cars pennies on the dollar to building houses 40 cents on the dollar, that’s crazy. Who says crime doesn’t pay....until you get caught.
The shitty thing about white collar crimes is that the punishment rarely is commiserate with the crime. I don’t know what the sentencing requirements are per dollar fraudulently attained but if you can bilk $500k to $1 mil and only get 2-4 yrs of which only half is hard time and other half is supervised release, that’s enough money per year to set up most avg worker for 10-15 years of working. Sure there’s restitution and the stolen money is supposed to be paid back but like that’s ever going to happen.
I read an accounting who skimmed $1.2 mil from her company and only got 2 years jail time and 3 years supervised release. Why do armed robbery when criminals make more w less risk doing Home Depot scams or the car scams like the one mentioned above?
They gotta crack down harder on white collar crimes.
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EDD fraud
all you need is identity (which is available for around 1500) chase employees are notorious for this.
then you need access to abandoned mail box ( houses on the market are perfect for this)
fill out the EDD application make it retroactive in week or so your get card with about 15k already in it
please dont message me with more questions
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| There are 21 comments on this blog. |
