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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

#131

Post by iasay »

chewz wrote: post #126
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 investigati…

This is similar to how the city of London police financial crimes unit operate.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#132

Post by CaptainZapp »

kwonkicker wrote: post #102
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!

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.

In finance it's not that you pick up the phone and call the Money Laundering Hotline of the responsible regulator.

What you do is you contact the internal compliance department where they have the specialists with the necessary knowledge who will further pursue it.

That's drilled into every employee of a financial corporation.

If Wallmart wants to be in the banking business it's not too much to ask to set up such a structure.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#133

Post by chinathrow »

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!

> “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.”

The person writing this should have walked away from this and report it. The person signing off on this as well.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#135

Post by [deleted] »

iasay wrote: post #131
chewz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 investigati…

This is similar to how the city of London police financial crimes unit operate.

[deleted]

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#136

Post by Aspos »

ahtihn wrote: post #128
Aspos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Swiss ID card made by Thales is quite difficult to forge. IDs of foreigners are biometric. There is a centralized registry against which ID cards can be verified.

I wish we had all that here in the US.

There is a good balance between security, efficiency and privacy in Switzerland. US should emulate CH.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#137

Post by jjeaff »

hattmall wrote: post #115
bastawhiz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was chatting with an elderly man in front of me in line at the post office years ago. He was complaining that he had already paid so many fees but was really close to collecting his winnings from the Australian lottery (we were in the US). And according to him, he never even entered the lottery. I told him that this was a common scam and that they were simply stealing his money and to not send them anymore.

He said, no, he knew it was real because they gave him the phone number for a bank and he called and the man on the other end confirmed it was real.

I implored him not to send any more money, but he continued to take out a postal money order for a few hundred dollars.

I told the cashier that he was being scammed after he left and they just said "ya, but what can you do?"

You can refuse to process the payment!

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#138

Post by jjeaff »

kwonkicker wrote: post #102
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!

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.

Have the employee ask 3 questions.

Are you paying to claim lottery winnings?

Is a nigerian prince asking you to transfer money for them?

Has someone you don't know deposited money in your bank account and needs you to wire cash to someone else?

If the answer is yes to any of those, decline the transfer and give them a pamphlet on common scams. This would take care of about 90% of the problem.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#139

Post by imgabe »

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.

> making it easy for scammers to retrieve fraud proceeds at a Walmart location.

The cashiers are giving the money to the scammer, not getting the money from the person being scammed.

The scammers, if they're any good, are probably not making chit-chat or doing anything to draw suspicion to themselves.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#140

Post by liaukovv »

jjeaff wrote: post #137
hattmall wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was chatting with an elderly man in front of me in line at the post office years ago. He was complaining that he had already paid so many fees but was really close to collecting his winnings from the Australian lottery (we were in the US). And according to him, he never even entered the lottery. I told him that this was a common scam and that they were simply stealing his money and to not send them anymore. He said…

Why do you consider yourself or the cashier to be in position to deny the man his lawful right to be stupid?
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