ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has confirmed state investigators and Bank of America are now looking into a possible health care scheme uncovered by a Channel 2 Action News Investigation.
"Basically, what this has every appearance of being is a scam," Georgia Consumer Protection Administrator John Sours told investigative reporter Aaron Diamant.
On Tuesday, Sours sized up the promise of a mysterious health care grant that's drawing more and more people to area shopping center store fronts, like one near Sylvan Road and Langford Parkway in Southwest Atlanta.
"I've been out of work, under a doctor's care, and I'm really having a financial hardship," applicant Mattie Brown told Diamant. "That would be so wrong if they got people out here for help and they're not helping you."
On Monday, Diamant found hundreds of people camped out in of a Clayton County shopping center to supposedly apply for the same grant inside beauty salon.
"Pretty much they're just saying that it an Obamacare grant giving way $3500 through a card somehow, and you've got to pay back $500. Basically that's pretty much what she said," explained applicant Jamisha Drue.
Other applicants told Diamant once inside the salon, staff directed them to a Bank of America website to open a health savings account, gave up their Social Security numbers and driver’s license info, then signed a document agreeing to pay, who Diamant later learned was the salon owner, $500 once they got a check card for that account.
"There's almost unlimited risk when you're providing that kind of personal financial information to somebody who's entering into a transaction with you that is bogus to begin with," said Sours.
Tuesday afternoon, Bank of America spokesman, Matthew Daily, told Diamant the bank started getting complaints Monday.
"These activities were done without our knowledge and without authorization to use the bank's name," said Daily. "We have opened up an abuse investigation, and we will cooperate fully with any law enforcement investigation."
For the second day in a row, no one at the beauty salon would answer Diamant's questions. Channel 2 Action News also got a tipped off to a similar operation in Covington.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the United States Department of Health and Human Services emailed Channel 2 Action News a statement saying, "The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services does not ask individuals or groups for any financial contribution in order to receive a grant award. The HHS Office of the Inspector General is aware of the incident."
WSBTV
