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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

#71

Post by damowangcy »

Aspos wrote: post #29

There is a reason why such kinds of fraud are practically nonexistent in some other countries but are prevalent in the US. Alas, nearly every problem in the US stems from politics. A problem which could have been solved easily will keep being a problem for another decade. Regulators could have solved the problem at its root and make the scams impossible, but no, they would rather shoot the messenger and force money t…

The problem is much complex than that. Coming up regulations and policies for the whole country isn't as simple and easy as it look.

It's just like dealing with many differnt large codebases that has multiple language, is managed by multiple different departments and teams.

The same thing happened in Big Tech. Bugs are usually not fixed until they become a critical issue, not because they can't be, the solution is either too simple and not worth it (allocating resource to it become negative return because it's not aligned with the companies goal or KPI, so any second you spent on it, is like you're doing it in your free time, no one in the company will appreciate the effort) OR it's too complicated and there's no easy way out without some party compromising.

In the end, a bug or something that could actually improve UX, is simply dismissed because how you felt is less important than the data and figures.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#72

Post by MBCook »

rmatt2000 wrote: post #27
hondo77 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet two commissioners voted "no". Wanna guess who appointed them?

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.

Would you prefer their books have to be open to the government for inspection to look for the fraud?

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#73

Post by MBCook »

Aspos wrote: post #29

There is a reason why such kinds of fraud are practically nonexistent in some other countries but are prevalent in the US. Alas, nearly every problem in the US stems from politics. A problem which could have been solved easily will keep being a problem for another decade. Regulators could have solved the problem at its root and make the scams impossible, but no, they would rather shoot the messenger and force money t…

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.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#74

Post by wpietri »

CodeSgt wrote: post #70
wpietri wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the more useful standard here is "knew or should have known". They would have had to have been literal children to not ever hear that money transfer services could be useful to scammers. So assuming the executives were actual adults, they either knew or should have known that they were party to and profiting from large-scale fraud. For what it's worth, the FTC did not "charge" them with anything. Walmart is b…

Scam calls are also quite prolific, and the executives at big mobile companies are aware of this fact, that doesn't make them criminals. By your logic, virtually every single business owner on the planet would be guilty of whatever you're accusing the Walmart execs of. Cars, computers, paper, pens, phones, wire, etc etc etc. There are very few popular products or services that don't facilitate criminal/antisocial beh…

Where did I say they were criminals? The FTC doesn't think so.

But there are important differences between scam calls and money transfer. The most obvious one is that big mobile companies don't profit significantly from scam calls. Another is that the big mobile companies are working quite aggressively to keep dubious callers off their networks.

Consider, on the other hand, that assorted fly-by-night telecoms providers are scammer-friendly, in the same way that a small number of network providers are friendly to spam, child porn, and other criminal activity. Those people are, in the FTC's phrasing, turning a blind eye. I'd be fine with that being made illegal in the same way it's illegal to fence stolen goods.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#76

Post by furyofantares »

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

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#77

Post by Dan_Sylveste »

MBCook wrote: post #72
rmatt2000 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you prefer their books have to be open to the government for inspection to look for the fraud?

That's the current reality.

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#78

Post by omegalulw »

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!

How does that manual pass even make it to employees hands?

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#79

Post by charlieyu1 »

xsmasher wrote: post #52
bombcar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi it’s me your irs tax audioter accounter cto manager I need you to buy many Amex gift cards and send me the codes so I can surprise the Ukrainians with them. Sincerely, totally honest guy.

You'd be surprised how targeted these scams can be. A friend's mother got an email from her synagogue, with the rabbi's name and everything, asking her to buy some gift cards to surprise some other (named) officials.

From Hong Kong, and I rarely even pick up phone calls from unnamed sources anymore

Re: FTC Sues Walmart for Facilitating Money Transfer Fraud

#80

Post by Aspos »

MBCook wrote: post #73
Aspos wrote: post #29

There is a reason why such kinds of fraud are practically nonexistent in some other countries but are prevalent in the US. Alas, nearly every problem in the US stems from politics. A problem which could have been solved easily will keep being a problem for another decade. Regulators could have solved the problem at its root and make the scams impossible, but no, they would rather shoot the messenger and force money t…

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 other countries in this world to require physical presence in the bank (great initiative, btw), but made an exception to themselves.

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

Create a centralized, machine-readable, PKI-enabled proper identification infrastructure (just like everywhere else) instead of painted plastic which they call driver licenses, create a centralized, unified, secure registry of all people instead of using SSN and boom, the rest of fraud schemes become useless.

Just start with this, easy to implement, simple solutions which will pay for themselves in a few years. No need to invent a bicycle, numerous countries went this way long time ago, there are no unknowns on this path.

Alas, again, politics.

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