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FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#111

Post by kadoban »

geodel wrote: post #110
kadoban wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Then Walmart shouldn't be in this business if it's literally impossible for them to train and employ the people necessary to do it somewhere in the neighborhood of correctly.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#112

Post by akozak »

hbcondo714 wrote: post #61

> Walmart acts as an agent for multiple money transfer services, including MoneyGram, Ria and Western Union This is an important distinction. The actual money transfer service is not the issue in this specific case.

It sort of is in the complaint. It sounds like the FTC imposed requirements on MoneyGram separately years ago, and MoneyGram tried but failed to impose those obligations on Walmart's retail locations. (It also seems that Walmart is itself a registered MSB/transmitter.)

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#113

Post by cmeacham98 »

rafale wrote: post #16
iancarroll wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it would be hard for churning/MS to exist without Walmart. You can buy Visa/MC gift cards with a credit card, turn them into money orders at Walmart (via running them as "debit"), and deposit those into most banks at a ~1% total loss. These days, I think Walmart is not the easiest route to liquidate gift cards though. They used to allow some silly things like combining many gift cards to buy one money order, bu…

Is manufactured spending legal? It sounds like abusing an electronic and wire system.

Yes, at least in the US. CC merchants are constantly fighting this behavior and limiting what counts for the purpose of the reward via their Ts&Cs.

(I have not passed the bar, this is not formal legal advice)

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#114

Post by rasz »

causality0 wrote: post #88

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?

Its not criminals buying Walmart vouchers, its grandmas trying to pay their IRS bill while holding phone in one hand being told what to do step by step in thick Indian accent.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#115

Post by hattmall »

bastawhiz wrote: post #96
furyofantares wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect cashiers suspecting fraud would have a high and probably discriminatory false positive rate. I wouldn't be surprised if it also sucked at detecting any actual fraud

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.

Western Union had a check list of questions to ask if certain amounts / destinations were met.

Did you win a lottery?

Are you claiming an inheritance?

Is this to help someone you know, but haven't spoken to?

Is this to pay a fine, tax or other government fee?

Seems pretty simple to rule out a lot of them.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#116

Post by rasz »

fortran77 wrote: post #91
causality0 wrote: post #88

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?

I had to check this for myself. It's true: https://fox11online.com/news/nation-world/subway-worker-shot...

Not the first mayo kill either https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/killing-fight-mayonnais...

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#117

Post by xsmasher »

YeBanKo wrote: post #85

Can someone tldr how exactly consumers lost money here?

From the lawsuit:

> for many years, consumers have reported tens of millions of dollars annually in fraud-induced money transfers processed by Walmart employees. [...] Walmart is well aware that telemarketing and other mass marketing frauds, such as “grandparent” scams, lottery scams, and government agent impersonator scams, induce people to use Walmart’s money transfer services to send money to domestic and international fraud rings.

Sounds like the typical "Hello, this is the IRS calling" or "We will shut off your electricity soon" telemarketing scams; they tell the victim to send money to them (the scammers) using Walmart's services.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#118

Post by Thorrez »

rasz wrote: post #114
causality0 wrote: post #88

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?

Its not criminals buying Walmart vouchers, its grandmas trying to pay their IRS bill while holding phone in one hand being told what to do step by step in thick Indian accent.

It sounds like both sides of the transaction were at Walmart. So in theory they could have intervened on both sides. But intervening on the sender side definitely sounds easier and safer.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#120

Post by listenallyall »

kadoban wrote: post #103
SoftTalker wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Perhaps, as you suggest, Wal-Mart should hire high-paid, well-trained executives from PayPal, Zelle, CashApp, Venmo or other services. God knows there's never been fraudulent transactions or scams on those platforms.

You obviously have a beef with Wal-Mart, writing essentially the same comment 4 times and seemingly ignoring the fact that virtually every supermarket and check-casher in the country has a similar employee running the Western Union desk.

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