A local TV news station reported Monday that several members ofthe $1.3 billion South Carolina Federal Credit Union in NorthCharleston, S.C. had a “significant amount of money taken out oftheir accounts.”

One woman said $1,800 was stolen from her account from somewherein France, while another woman said her entire account was wipedout, according to Live5News in Charleston, S.C.

The news report said based off customers' (members')information, dozens of accounts had seen unauthorizedtransactions. The report did not identify the members or directlyquote them.

Meredith H. Siemens, executive director of public relations andcommunications at South Carolina FCU, told CU Times shecould not confirm the details of the local news report, but didacknowledge some members experienced fraud through their debitcards.

Siemens said she was not sure on the specifics as to how thethieves gained access to member accounts.

“We don't have a final number on how many members wereimpacted,” she said.

In an email statement released to members on Monday, the creditunion said the fraudulent debit card transactions occurred over theweekend.

“We would like to assure you that, based on today's dataanalysis, the security of member information was not compromised atSouth Carolina Federal Credit Union,” the statement read. “Itis important – both to you and to the credit union – that membersunderstand that South Carolina Federal has not been 'hacked.'”

The credit union also stated that South Carolina is nowexperiencing one of the highest rates of fraud of any state in thecountry. The credit union and Siemens did not cite the source ofthat information.

“Our location, combined with the increased urgency to use stoleninformation, due to the upcoming adoption of EMV chip cards, hassparked spikes in fraudulent activities,” South Carolina's FCUstatement continued. “In most cases, the current fraud activity isnot the result of something that occurred recently. Many of theincidents are linked to cards compromised in previous breaches(Target, Home Depot, K Mart, etc.). Fraudsters typically holdon to stolen card information until people have forgotten about it,and then use the stolen information to conduct fraudulenttransactions.”

However, the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs,which monitors fraudulent activities throughout the state, toldCU Times it has not seen spikes in fraudulent activitiesso far this year.

“Reports made to our department's ID Theft Unit have not beenout of the ordinary in comparison to previous years,”' JulianaHarris, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department ofConsumer Affairs, said. “The most notable report we've been gettingthis year is in reference to tax return fraud.”

What's more, the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer SentinelReport for 2014 shows that South Carolina ranked No. 20 for fraudreports and No. 30 in the nation for ID theft reports.

“While I think it would be advantageous to improve both thesenumbers, neither are inordinately high,” Harris said.