this explains the scam a bit more.

Police warn of identity theft scam involving bank cards; 2 victims reported in Cartersville

(AP photo)
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Posted: Friday, June 6, 2014 2:00 am | Updated: 7:33 am, Fri Jun 6, 2014.
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Posted on Jun 6, 2014by Carolyn Grindrod
Two recent reports of identify theft were actually elaborate tricks aimed at swindling money from banks, Cartersville authorities said Wednesday.
“The banks are the ones getting scammed,” said Capt. Mark Camp, public affairs officer with Carters ville police.
Investigators are now working to identify all parties — who they say could be linked to a notorious street and jailhouse gang, “the Gangster Disciples” — who were involved in the local banking scam.
Camp said in the past few months his department has had two individuals file false claims that their wallet or debit card information was stolen.
These “victims” report that money was taken from their accounts and attempt to work with the banks get that money reimbursed.
“They called the banks and say ‘Hey, I lost my card,’ or ‘my wallet was stolen,’” said Camp. “The bank freezes everything but won’t refund any of the money that went ‘missing’ without a police report, so they file a police report.”
Camp said Cartersville police investigators worked with the banks to determine that the two stolen money reports were false.
“I’d say about 99 percent of the time, these kind of fraud claims turn out to be true,” he added. “However, in these two cases the banks figured out that something else had to be going on, and when investigators conducted interviews with the complainants they realized that something wasn’t adding up in their stories.”
Camp said police believe the complainants gave their banking information to a scam artist who offered to give them a share of the money that was withdrawn.
Investigators also noticed that similar crimes have been reported around the nation and linked to the “Gangster Disciples,” he said.
“We’re talking about millions of dollars that have been reported swindled in these type of crimes,” he added.
These kinds of crimes, Camp added, could bring major penalties for not only the perpetrators, but the account-holders as well.
“These individuals could be facing some serious charges,” he said. “These are all acts of theft, fraud and conspiracy to commit a crime, which is a felony. In addition, they are filing fraudulent reports, so they could be charged with making false statements.”