Ex-Home Depot Employee Allegedly Stole $4M in Gift Cards

A woman who used to work at a Home Depot has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison following her guilty sentence in relation to the theft of thousands of gift cards from her previous boss.

Former Home Depot Employee Faces $4M Day of Reckoning

Identified as F.I of Covington, Georgia, the woman stole and activated gift cards to the tune of $4 million, incurring losses for the Home Depot business in the process and eventually getting in the crosshairs of both the US Department of Homeland Security and the Home Depot’s Gift Card Team.

F.I. has been a long-standing team member, and she started working with the company in 2008. She supposedly began her nefarious scheme during the pandemic, when she began stealing the cards from the Home Depot Support Center. 

In the space of only 16 months, F.I. was able to steal 8,325 gift cards and activate them using her employee credentials, using fake corporate events to obfuscate her tracks. 

The money obtained from the activation of the cards was mostly used to fund F.I.’s gambling lifestyle, the Department of Justice clarified in a press release.

The scheme unfolded between March 2020 and July 2021, with fewer employees around to work during the COVID-19 which was why F.I. thought she could act mostly unseen.  F.I. would then sell the cards at a discount, with her actions finally catching up to her when she pled guilty on May 1, 2025. 

The Home Depot Gift Card Team eventually caught up to F.I. by realizing that the ledgers showed major discrepancies, with thousands of cards appearing to have gone missing. 

F.I. will now have to pay back $4,085,043 as restitution for her crimes on top of her prison sentence. 

Commenting on the case, acting special agent in charge of the United States Secret Service Atlanta Field Office, Robert Donovan, said that the scheme was unearthed owing to the tireless work of the institution’s agents, who quickly realized how the scheme worked and were able to track down the right suspect. 

“Thanks to the tireless work of our agents, cooperation from the Home Depot, and the skill of the prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office, she will spend the next three years in prison paying for her crimes,” Donovan added. 

F.I. will also have to serve three years of supervised release before she is finally in the clear.