Home Depot put up the cameras to deal with organized crime, both theft and gift-card fraud. Flock specifically advertises that Home Depot put up the cameras to deal with gift card fraud:
> The Home Depot leveraged Flock Safety’s technology to close a case involving a multi-state gift card tampering ring, resulting in fraud and property theft charges exceeding $300,000. This type of success underscores how powerful connected data can be in mitigating fraud risks. [0]
Aside from that, Home Depot has been dealing with massive, multi-state, organized theft campaigns. Earlier this month, NY prosecutors lodged 780 counts of theft against thirteen suspects who stole millions of dollars of merchandise from Home Depot stores in nine states [1].
You wanna prevent gift card fraud? Stop selling gift cards.
Gift cards are a huge fraud vehicle by their nature. Home Depot is just noticing because it fraud against them, rather than the more usual money laundering for scams. Retailers turn a bit of a blind eye, since they make so much money from gift cards that never get used or end up with leftover balances. But really gift cards are an attractive nuisance, and add no value for the (non-sucker) consumer.
And the cameras will have small effectiveness after the first few arrests anyway. "Don't let the LPR catch your car" just becomes part of the tradecraft for these organized operations. Whereas sporadic, opportunistic, individualized ripoffs won't create much of a signature in the LPR stream.
> The Home Depot leveraged Flock Safety’s technology to close a case involving a multi-state gift card tampering ring, resulting in fraud and property theft charges exceeding $300,000. This type of success underscores how powerful connected data can be in mitigating fraud risks. [0]
Aside from that, Home Depot has been dealing with massive, multi-state, organized theft campaigns. Earlier this month, NY prosecutors lodged 780 counts of theft against thirteen suspects who stole millions of dollars of merchandise from Home Depot stores in nine states [1].
Not everything is about illegal immigrants.
[0] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/combating-retail-fraud-with... [1] https://queenseagle.com/all/2025/12/12/retail-theft-ring-tha...