A purported New England scummer is facing some hefty time behind bars for a very devious fraud scheme:

A Connecticut man allegedly defrauded Home Depot of nearly $300,000 with a non-receipted return scheme, federal prosecutors say.

Now, when I hear "non-receipted return scheme," my first thought is that he brought in outside merchandise and returned it to the company as if he had bought it there.

But actually the guy reportedly took it one step further: He would enter the store dressed like a contractor, load up a bunch of expensive doors into his cart, and then return those doors to customer service — without even buying them.

If they refused to participate in the exchange, he'd walk out with the doors and return them to another Home Depot.

It's pretty genius in its own way. I mean, except that the dummy crook got caught.

The criminal scheme — which also involved fake driver's licenses — "went on for at least nine months," during which the crook "allegedly received 370 fraudulent store credits worth $297,332."

The suspect is being held without bail.