Home Depot count room scam

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this was truly amazing to me because I had the exact same duties this guy had at Borders Books for a few years - although I had many other duties as a Supervisor

the most amazing thing is that according to the story he got away with this 𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙔𝙀𝘼𝙍𝙎 - incredible

he bought "prop" currency from Amazon which is used for games and which looks similar to U.S. currency and then sent it in with the store's daily deposit - switching out for real currency and pocketing the real stuff that came from customers

how in the world that their bank didn't detect this right away I have no idea - this prop stuff is easy to spot and bank workers are trained in this - it's really astounding to me


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https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/us/home-depot-counterfeit-arrest/index.html


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This line from the story indicates to me the bank was identifying counterfeit currency for several years.

"Between January 2018 and January 2022, Home Depot recorded $387,000 in losses due to counterfeit notes in their bank deposits, the Secret Service said."

Quote: AlanMendelson

This line from the story indicates to me the bank was identifying counterfeit currency for several years.

"Between January 2018 and January 2022, Home Depot recorded $387,000 in losses due to counterfeit notes in their bank deposits, the Secret Service said."
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I don't believe the bank would have allowed it to go on that long.

More than likely, the money was stored at the bank and upon discovering a batch of counterfeit bills inserted into a home depot's delivery, went back through other stored bundles of cash. They kept accurate records of where each bundle stored came from and then contacted authorities.

Quote: AlanMendelson

This line from the story indicates to me the bank was identifying counterfeit currency for several years.

"Between January 2018 and January 2022, Home Depot recorded $387,000 in losses due to counterfeit notes in their bank deposits, the Secret Service said."
link to original post

yes, you corrected my error

they recorded the losses but made no effort to assist law enforcement in identifying and apprehending this person which they could have easily done within one week

they could easily know where those bogus bills came from - for sure - it's inexcusable

I've also worked at a bank - the bank employee opens up a bag marked as coming from Home Deport and which store
he then begins to confirm the amount stated on the deposit slip - he should be able to easily spot the bogus bills, inform his Manager and his Manager should then contact Law Enforcement - one or 2 bogus deposits could be overlooked as some kind of mistake - but not 3 years worth


DarkOz is wrong - banks don't store bundles of money - not relatively small amounts coming from Home Depot where 70% of customers pay with credit cards

possibly they do from casinos - where you're talking about gigantic sums of cash

those deposits cannot be entered into their accounting until they're confirmed


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The bigger question is why did they not have two employees making the drop? Basic security says you have two people counting the cash for accuracy and to avoid theft.

Quote: AZDuffman

The bigger question is why did they not have two employees making the drop? Basic security says you have two people counting the cash for accuracy and to avoid theft.
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When I worked retail we always had two people count. But not at the same time. The second person could have easily just swapped a $100 for a fake $100 and the count could have been the same.

As someone else said, this is something that you could easily get away with one or two times a year. But it’s crazy that the bank didn’t stop it sooner.

I'm not sure that all $387,000 was stolen by this one employee either. The story says Home Depot and it's not clear to me that it's the entire company or just where this guy worked.

That he was released with no bail posted indicates to me the amount of money in question was small.

I'd like to see clarification. The news story was poorly written.

The original press release from the Secret Service does indicate it was all taken by this one man from this one store but that's the Secret Service's allegation.

Another article says the guy was making $14 an hour. It also said Home Depots' anti-counterfeiting main line of defenses occurred before he got his hands on the money so it was presumed clean. Some of the bills had as a serial number PLAY MONEY.
The guy was caught on camera 18 times replacing $100 bills with money from his wallet, but they are blaming him for all the missing money, almost $360,000 worth.
Why is it always Arizona?

Quote: FinsRule

Quote: AZDuffman

The bigger question is why did they not have two employees making the drop? Basic security says you have two people counting the cash for accuracy and to avoid theft.
link to original post

When I worked retail we always had two people count. But not at the same time. The second person could have easily just swapped a $100 for a fake $100 and the count could have been the same.

As someone else said, this is something that you could easily get away with one or two times a year. But it’s crazy that the bank didn’t stop it sooner.
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"If he hadn't been so greedy he would have been harder to spot. But in the end, they're all greedy"--Sam "Ace" Rothstein.

I remember the one time I had to close up the safe. I asked the manager if I could scoot early as it was 7:00 AM Thanksgiving morning and all my work was done. He said no, there had to be two people there when they buttoned up the safe. I did nothing but watch as I had no idea how to do it but we needed two. I do remember I had much access to the cash drawers put in the office after the safe was locked up many times though. I forget if I was on camera or not. OTOH, many ways I could have skimmed $20 a week out of the place (big money when you made $4 an hour!) but all would have involved another person.