Funny, when Walmart’s money is involved, they have no problem having untrained staff harass, profile and intimidate customers suspected of not following store policy.
I feel like you are speaking without knowledge, because it usually take an extraordinary amount of blatant repeat theft for the loss protection team to act against an individual. Solo one-time shoplifters have close to a 100% chance of success without being apprehended.
There’s a well established, well documented pattern of conduct by Walmart that suggests otherwise.
In a town near me, the store generates ~3000 arrests a year, to the point that the town has a police substation on the premises.
For years, according to the complaint, it was Walmart’s stated policy for its employees to issue payouts even in the case of a suspicious money transfer, making it easy for scammers to retrieve fraud proceeds at a Walmart location. The complaint cites a Walmart reference guide for employees that stated: “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” Wow!
This is preferable. I wouldn't trust a cashier to detect fraud in any trustworthy rate. That wording in the guideline is important. Suspicion of fraud is not fraud. Acting upon employee suspicion would just skyrocket costumer outbursts and complaints.
I'd bet many cases were obvious. How many people told the employees they were paying IRS fees? Or that they had a long lost relative who contacted them? Many of these scams aren't sophisticated and the people falling for them are gullible. It's not hard to imagine that an employee with a bit more sense than the customer could have simply been told what's happening and realized it's probably illegitimate.
Walmart cashiers by and large are not sophisticated either. I mean that sounds harsh but these are not people walking in with a lot of financial savvy. Without training and reminders I would not think they would be any more likely to identify these scams than the victims are.
Maybe they shouldn't be in that role then.
Maybe Walmart should be expected to employ people in these roles who are paid and trained well enough to be able to pass a test like "can you spot the most obvious scam that has ever scammed, at least once in a while?"
For years, according to the complaint, it was Walmart’s stated policy for its employees to issue payouts even in the case of a suspicious money transfer, making it easy for scammers to retrieve fraud proceeds at a Walmart location. The complaint cites a Walmart reference guide for employees that stated: “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” Wow!
This is preferable. I wouldn't trust a cashier to detect fraud in any trustworthy rate. That wording in the guideline is important. Suspicion of fraud is not fraud. Acting upon employee suspicion would just skyrocket costumer outbursts and complaints.
Then they should employ and train people in these roles who could be trusted to do that.
Some people are philosophically opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. That doesn't mean they are in favor of fraud.
It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years the same AGs sue Walmart and Western Union for allowing employees to suspect fraud for the wrong reasons and denying transactions.
> for the wrong reasons
Yes, they should probably be empowered to actually make decisions and trained to make them correctly. Is that asking so much?
This week a fast food worker was shot and killed because someone had too much mayo on their burger. You think a company is going to tell ten dollar an hour workers to piss off criminals?
This is the realest comment here. are you really going to ask for the donation like the manager asks to every moaning and complaining person for example? No you're going to take their money and say nothing and move along. Poliicy meeting reality.
This concern > opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. does not explain this policy > “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” If there is suspicion of fraud and yet still direct your employees complete the transaction, sure, maybe you're not literally in favor of fraud. But it does mean that you don't care if there's fraud. There's little daylight between not cari…
I think you're off a bit here. Not everyone is a fraud detection specialist. If Wal-mart had implemented the "trust your gut" policy you're advocating for, you're just going to get Ethiopian grandmas trying to cash out money from their grandkids and some random-ass Walmart employee deciding it's fraud because "she looks suspicious" or some nonsense and then she can't pay her rent. People should be trained to detect f…
> People should be trained to detect fraud if that's necessary. But saying "don't try to detect fraud" to random-ass employees whose job is not fraud detection seems eminently reasonable to me.
It's not reasonable because of the first sentence. If you're dealing with other people's money, your employees should be trained to detect fraud. If you can't be bothered to ensure that, you shouldn't be dealing with other people's money.
Daughter nearly fell victim to one of these. An auditor over the course of 2 hours convinced her that the store manager was stealing money and that she needed to transfer it back to corporate. Thankfully I was giving her a ride that day. She was in a total panic but wouldn’t tell me what was going on. He had her convinced that if she said anything she was gonna go to jail. I thought they were having her do a night mo…
It would help if people were taught a few things about the IRS when they're kids. First, they never urgently need your money. There are consequences for missing deadlines but meeting them is up to you. Second, the IRS may call you (an auditor did call me once) but they just tell you that a letter is in the mail. All their correspondence is verifiable by calling the office. Third, they know your SSN. It's on the 1040.…
Not just this, but common red flags that indicate a scam. There are many variations but they all follow the same broad plot lines. Any unexpected request for money should be verified. The more urgent it sounds, the more likely it is fake. If you are traveling, give your kids/parents a code word that you will use in case of an emergency. No legitimate collection agency, business, bail bond company, or government office is going to demand payment in the form of gift cards.
It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years the same AGs sue Walmart and Western Union for allowing employees to suspect fraud for the wrong reasons and denying transactions.
> for the wrong reasons Yes, they should probably be empowered to actually make decisions and trained to make them correctly. Is that asking so much?
Yeah it is asking too much. We have software engineers who couldn't write a sorry ass CRUD app while collecting $100K pa salaries. All the training and salary doesn't mean shit. With volume Walmart might be processing this kind of fraud is within cost of doing business.