Published on: March 2, 2026, 06:19h.
Updated on: March 2, 2026, 06:19h.
- Ex-Home Depot staffer embezzled 8,325 gift cards
- $4 million scheme fuelled gambling habits
- Secret Service probe resulted in federal prison term
A former employee of The Home Depot has been sentenced to over three years in federal prison for the theft and activation of over $4 million in company gift cards, as revealed by federal prosecutors.
Felecia Ingram, a resident of Covington, Georgia, used the majority of her ill-gotten gains to sustain a lavish “gambling lifestyle,” as described by prosecutors. The investigation was notably carried out by the US Department of Homeland Security (Secret Service) in tandem with Home Depot’s gift card team.
Ingram had been with the company as a gift card sales associate since 2008. During the pandemic, while many employees transitioned to remote work, the 53-year-old utilized her time at the Home Depot Support Center to systematically steal the company’s gift cards.
8.3K Cards Converted for Cash
Her operation involved taking stacks of physical gift cards—over 8,300—over a 16-month timeframe from March 2020 to July 2021.
Using her employee access, she managed to activate the cards within the system by fabricating false “corporate event” orders to legitimize the charges, subsequently erasing these fraudulent entries from the records.
Once activated, she reportedly sold the cards on the black market for cash.
Ingram entered a guilty plea on May 1, 2025, for access device fraud and was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. to three years and a month in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Additionally, she was ordered to repay $3,946,776 in restitution.
The scheme was exposed when Home Depot’s gift card team noticed significant discrepancies in the gift card ledger. The investigation revealed that Ingram had pilfered a total of 8,325 cards amounting to $4,085,043.
‘Facing the Consequences’
“Taking advantage of her role for personal benefit, this offender believed she could leverage her insight into her employer’s operational procedures to hide a multi-million-dollar fraud,” stated Robert Donovan, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service Atlanta Field Office.
“Thanks to the relentless efforts of our agents, collaboration from Home Depot, and the proficiency of the prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office, she will serve the next three years in prison as a consequence of her actions,” he added.
In response, a spokesperson from Home Depot remarked that the company is “relieved to move past this issue so we can focus on doing what’s right and serving our customers.”