A federal grand jury charged 10 Arkansas residents with stealing millions of dollars from California’s Employment Development Department debit cards, issued by Bank of America.
The indictment says a Bank of America contractor was on the inside, helping cohorts cash in phony EDD debit cards — and make off with $2.7 million dollars.
This incident shows the long arm of the EDD fraud — this time, authorities say, all the way from Arkansas.
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Previously Bank of America detected fraud and froze thousands of EDD debit cards to try to stop it. In the process, many legitimate workers were locked out of their unemployment benefits.
Diane Davis and Michael Conant watched as hackers drained their EDD debit cards.
“You guys took $16,000 from the account. Where did it go?” Conant asked.
“$7,000 was taken out of my account. It hurts,” Davis said.
Bank of America denied their claims and froze their accounts, along with thousands of others.
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“We believe the overwhelming majority of frozen accounts represent frauds that were stopped, representing hundreds of millions or billions in criminal activity,” said Bank of America executive Faiz Ahmad during an explanation to…
