“1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?” • Hacker News Board

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#21

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #5

revelation wrote: post #2

What a nice propaganda piece on Western Union, enabler of scammers worldwide and reliably preying on those disenfranchised parts of the human population we've decided can't have debit accounts.

So you think humanity has a primary right to bank accounts? You want to force private entities (banks) to work with an obviously unreliable subset of the population? How do you prevent money laundering if you can't reasonably identify your clients? What exactly is your solution?

Preventing money laundering should be an anti goal. It puts a huge burden on everyone to prevent a victimless crime just to make prosecutors' lives' easier.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#22

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

readams wrote: post #4

Western Union is really good as a reliable indicator that a transaction is a scam.

I've used WU many times to get money to people in remote places. None of those transactions were scams.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#23

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

wcummings wrote: post #9

>A warrant application filed in the investigation detailed how “pickup operators”—middlemen who specialized in accepting and aggregating the transfers—would team with Western Union agents willing to overlook fake IDs in exchange for bribes and commissions. Let's be real, you don't need to bribe anyone to pass a fake ID at WU.

This is true. Usually all you need is the name of the recipient and the exact amount and they'll accept your signature.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#24

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #2

What a nice propaganda piece on Western Union, enabler of scammers worldwide and reliably preying on those disenfranchised parts of the human population we've decided can't have debit accounts.

There are whole swathes of humanity without bank accounts, for those people WU can be a lifeline.

Not because they 'can't have debit accounts' but simply because there is no banking infrastructure where they live.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#25

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

theWatcher37 wrote: post #12

ginko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So you think humanity has a primary right to bank accounts? You want to force private entities (banks) to work with an obviously unreliable subset of the population? Yeah, that's what's already the case here in Austria. It essentially means that if you don't have a bank account (and you're not in an ongoing litigation with the bank in question), then a bank MUST accept your application for a basic bank account. See…

That is idiotic. The state forcing a business to accept a customer no matter their records?

> The state forcing a business to accept a customer no matter their records?

The same with health insurance no matter what your prior situation is.

This sort of arrangement is very common for things the government thinks are 'must haves' in order to participate in society.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#26

Post by khedoros1 » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 6:09 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #22

readams wrote: post #4

Western Union is really good as a reliable indicator that a transaction is a scam.

I've used WU many times to get money to people in remote places. None of those transactions were scams.

I think it's a matter of norms and expectations. I've got family in Honduras, and I would consider WU to send some money to them, if the need arose. I wouldn't consider it for a way to pay for something I was trying to buy on Ebay, and I think that's the perspective that a lot of the "SCAM!" comments are written from.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#27

Post by diogenescynic » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #3

The discussion of "typologies" doesn't discuss what happens when they trigger false positives. Essentially government pressure forces Western Union to be much more restrictive on it's compliance rules. Do they reject hundreds of transactions for each criminal transaction it catches? How much does this disenfranchise customers? Just one more step on the road to legitimizing bitcoins.

Remittances are horrible for Bitcoin. Most remittances are fairly small, so the Bitcoin fees alone are more expensive than just paying Western Union or another remittance service. Not to mention bitcoin being extremely inconvenient for the types of people who tend to use remittance services.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#28

Post by khedoros1 » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #20

isubkhankulov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about apple gift cards? heavily used by scammers. are you attacking Apple because malicious users abuse their stored value cards?

I don't know, what about Apple Gift Cards? And what, for that matter, about Samsung smartphones? What exactly is a non sequitur?

It's not a non sequitur; iTunes gift cards are also common instruments for scammers. They're also used legitimately, just like WU transfers are. The comparison is clear.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#29

Post by revelation » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

khedoros1 wrote: post #28

revelation wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, what about Apple Gift Cards? And what, for that matter, about Samsung smartphones? What exactly is a non sequitur?

It's not a non sequitur; iTunes gift cards are also common instruments for scammers. They're also used legitimately, just like WU transfers are. The comparison is clear.

And yet, somehow, that is not the point I'm making. You can bring up something without having to raise the entirety of trivia that may also fit that pattern, you know?

So it's a non sequitur because obviously this is a thread on WesternUnion and they're bringing up Apple gift cards. It's like, cool, discuss that over there if you wish to.

Re: “1M Syrian customers, do you think they will ever forget Western Union?”

#30

Post by bildung » Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

theWatcher37 wrote: post #12

ginko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So you think humanity has a primary right to bank accounts? You want to force private entities (banks) to work with an obviously unreliable subset of the population? Yeah, that's what's already the case here in Austria. It essentially means that if you don't have a bank account (and you're not in an ongoing litigation with the bank in question), then a bank MUST accept your application for a basic bank account. See…

That is idiotic. The state forcing a business to accept a customer no matter their records?

Yes, society decided that the bank is allowed participate in the market that itself is based on public (and publicly financed) infrastructure, if and only if certain conditions are met. The bank's owners are free to accept or shift capital into another industry.