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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

#121

Post by ac29 »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #81
MBCook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What regulations would have solved this problem? I think making transferring money much faster/easier instead of the current ACH system would help. But I’m assuming you’re thinking of other things.

Government could provide a national photo ID and develop standards for its secure use as part of regulating interstate commerce. As it stands the US has know your customer laws but allows businesses to initiate lines of credit to people without actual proof of identity.

I have a national photo ID, its called a passport. There are also rules for federally compliant state ID cards (Real ID).

Not sure the legality on requiring this sort of ID for financial transactions though.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#122

Post by whynotkeithberg »

listenallyall wrote: post #120
kadoban wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 employ…

Well if those companies have fraud then WalMart just shouldn't even try. Your logic is impeccable.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#123

Post by chemmail »

furyofantares wrote: post #76
granzymes wrote: post #13

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!

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 am a minority, but every time a minority comes in, i tell them take their business elsewhere. After 30 years, you just know by how they walk. If some woke person analyzed this, they will definitely be correct.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#124

Post by jstarfish »

treeman79 wrote: post #89
justinjlynn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? This sounds like a constructive dismissal - designed to avoid claims of retaliation and victim blaming in a sympathetic case - to me.

She was a victim. She also showed poor judgment as an assistant manager being fast tracked to manage the store. Also from his standpoint, he doesn’t know for sure if she was being scammed. She could have taken money then gotten cold feet and made up story. It’s a crap situation. Money person at Grocery store also showed poor judgment. I had to ask for the store manager. Which is what article is referencing.

> She could have taken money then gotten cold feet and made up story

Not saying anything about your daughter (don't know her), but there's an easy way to tell: get the phone records and verify the "conversation" took place. It should have lasted longer than 30 seconds.

One simple trick unravels 90% of the "someone else made me do it" clusterfucks.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#125

Post by listenallyall »

whynotkeithberg wrote: post #122
listenallyall wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 employ…

Well if those companies have fraud then WalMart just shouldn't even try. Your logic is impeccable.

Impeccable? You've made up your mind based solely on the accusation (which 2 of the 5 Commissioners voted against). I prefer waiting until the defense gets its say.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#126

Post by chewz »

granzymes wrote: post #13

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!

Reminds of HSBC - look the othere way...

> In a sprawling, low-rise building abutting pasture land in New Castle, Delaware, HSBC’s anti-money laundering staff review customer transactions and so-called alerts generated when the bank’s monitoring systems spot a suspicious transaction.

> Former employees in the New Castle office describe a febrile boiler-room environment overseen by managers uninterested in investigating transactions with possible links to drug trafficking, terrorist financing, Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions, and other illegal activities. Instead, they say, the single-minded focus was on clearing out the paperwork as fast as possible.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-compliance-delaware-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Stern#HSBC_Money_laund...

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#127

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

It is inconceivable to ask minimum wage Walmart employees to detect fraud, detect fake IDs, and conduct suspicious activity investigations. It costs much more money to conduct those checks than $1 or so that Walmart charges for its transfers. Walmart will simply stop providing those services, which were used primarily by disadvantaged populations and immigrants.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#128

Post by ahtihn »

Aspos wrote: post #80
MBCook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What regulations would have solved this problem? I think making transferring money much faster/easier instead of the current ACH system would help. But I’m assuming you’re thinking of other things.

Many kinds of fraud mentioned in this post and the original article hinge on the fact that fraudsters can easily withdraw the money from the destination account. Just close this loophole and a bunch of fraud schemes will go obsolete. Require physical presence in the bank with machine readable biometrics passport for account opening (just like everywhere else) and boom, half the fraud schemes are gone. US forced all o…

> Require machine-readable passport with biometrics for large cash withdrawals (just like everywhere else).

What do you mean by everywhere else? I'm not required to have a passport for large cash withdrawals in Switzerland, a normal id card is enough.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#129

Post by tallanvor »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #127

It is inconceivable to ask minimum wage Walmart employees to detect fraud, detect fake IDs, and conduct suspicious activity investigations. It costs much more money to conduct those checks than $1 or so that Walmart charges for its transfers. Walmart will simply stop providing those services, which were used primarily by disadvantaged populations and immigrants.

That's on Walmart. Obviously we don't want to make things harder for already disadvantaged communities, but we simply can't let Walmart off the hook when they specifically tell their employees to complete transactions even when they suspect fraud. There are just too many stories from Walmart employees who KNEW a person was being scammed but they were required to complete the transaction.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#130

Post by thallium205 »

Aspos wrote: post #87
bluedino wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gift card scams?

There should be no way to convert gift cards into large amounts of cash for starters. US, perhaps, is the only developed country with gift card scams problem.

The US limits gift card amounts to $500 and most retailers don't even allow that amount.
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