While Everyone Was Focused On Crypto Scams, Walmart Was Out Here Actively Helping Scammers
from the maybe-the-problem-is-deeper-than-crypto dept
There’s no denying that the cryptocurrency world is chock full of scammers, Ponzi schemes, and sketchy sketchy offerings. But, the prevalence of such things in that world has lead some to argue that if cryptocurrencies were banned, we’d likely have less scams and fraud online. I’ve yet to see any data to support that — because it sure looks like scammers are willing to use any and all options to move money around.
Case in point: last month the FTC sued Walmart, claiming that the company didn’t just turn a blind eye to fraud, but actively seemed to encourage it.
Walmart’s practice of turning a blind eye to fraud had grave consequences for consumers, according to the complaint. The complaint cites numerous instances in which law enforcement investigations found that scammers relied on Walmart money transfers as a primary way to receive payments, including in telemarketing schemes like IRS impersonation schemes, relative-in-need “grandparent” scams, sweepstakes scams, and others. Based on information from fraud databases maintained by MoneyGram, Western Union, and Ria, from 2013 to 2018 more than $197 million in payments that were the subject of fraud complaints were sent or received at Walmart, with more than $1.3 billion in related payments also possibly connected to the fraud.
And, sure cryptocurrencies may offer some advantages for scamming, but can your cryptocurrency do this?
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.” Walmart did not begin training employees to deny fraudulent payouts until at least May 2017, but even then it provided this training only to employees at a limited number of locations.
If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction. The company literally told its employees that even when they suspect fraud, to just complete the transaction.
And it didn’t even train employees about how to deny fraudulent payouts until 2017.
The complaint notes that the company didn’t even have an anti-fraud program until 2014.
Again, this isn’t condoning either Walmart’s behavior or cryptocurrency scams, but I do find it fascinating that Walmart was doing so little to deal with fraud and scams in its money transfer service just as everyone was insisting that it was cryptocurrency making all that fraud possible.
And, no, there is no way that in 2014 or 2017 Walmart didn’t know that fraud was a serious issue. Anyone doing anything with money knows the risks and concerns about fraud. Companies that focus on payments from Paypal, to Stripe, to Block, to Apple and Google have teams working on this stuff constantly, trying to minimize fraud. Not that they always succeed, but they at least are working on it.
And Walmart, one of the largest companies in the world just went with “if you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.”
Unbelievable.
Filed Under: fraud, fraudulent payments, ftc, scams, walmart2walmart, walmart2world
Companies: walmart
Comments on “While Everyone Was Focused On Crypto Scams, Walmart Was Out Here Actively Helping Scammers”
Typo: “chock full of scammers, Ponzi schemes, and sketchy sketchy offerings”
Re:
So the guy missed a comma. Big fleshy deal! 😉
There are a few YT channels
That are watching over scams and tracking those doing it.
trying to help those who have fallen for the scams.
Shades of AT&T doing nothing about cramming for so long…
One wonders how much they were getting for providing this ‘service’.
Crap store
I worked in a Wal-Mart here in Canada in the late 20’10’s. It was garbage. They had one employee so brazen about stealing TV’s that he could just walk someone out the front doors.
There was one manager in particular who was a complete moron. A “customer” walked into the store, took a George Foreman Grill off the shelf, went to Customer Service, and tried to return it, saying he lost his receipt. This was all on camera, since they are lousy with them. The manager in question decided to give the “customer” a gift card, with the justification that “At least they’ll spend the money here”
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Useful
Walmart five nights at freddy’s should take strong measures to protect users.
Re:
No, I’m not interested in that game, fuck you very much.
Re:
No, I’m not interested in that game, fuck you very much.
Eh. That’s one statement whose context we have no information about. I’m sure there are banks that have, in their manuals, something like “if someone’s threatening to shoot you, pay them”. Many stores tell their employees not to stop people who are stealing. For all we know, the next line was “Then ask the security department to forward the surveillance video to the authorities and file a suspicious activity report.”
Another complaint was that “Walmart, unlike most other outlets where money transfers can be received, pays even large payments in cash.” Um… how else would they pay it? If both people had bank accounts, they wouldn’t need Walmart’s services, would they? If Walmart only gave checks, some group would be complaining that they’re forcing the unbanked to use overpriced check-cashing services.
Re:
Some (many?) wire/money order companies pay out with a prepaid debit card.
Re: Re:
Don’t those often have a lot of fees, expiry dates, etc.? A family member recently lost several hundred dollars to prepaid-card expiry. (The card company said there’s nothing they can do; call the issuer. The issuer said there’s nothing they can do; call the card company. After some days of emails and phone calls, they gave up.)
How’s it better against scams, anyway? I guess it could be canceled later, but wouldn’t a scammer have already spent it? And if not, would the sender then get their money back? If someone would have to refund the money, why not just say Walmart would have to do the same for cash payouts, and let it be their money lost?
Reality please!
WTAF?!!?
Most who actually understand cryptoC generally agree the influence of scams is less than 1%!
You’re more likely to fall for a crack phone call or text message than actually find a crypto scam.
And let’s not ignore that standard business practices cause ideas to fail. More so in defi and blockchain.
People who fall for actual scams can be sorted into two groups.
1) quick buck idiots who pay for garbage from spam and think their invincible
2) know-it-all idiots who don’t research anything before parting with real hard cash
Those that bytch about crypto scams fall into three groups:
1) idiots who got scammed (all few hundred of them)
2) doom-sayers looking to sell copy
3) people in banking, government, investments, anywhere that defi/bc is a pain in the arse.
The thing is most people are simply stupid and didn’t get scammed at all. In reality many people approach CC/DeFi/BC like an investment. It is not, and never was intended to be.
Ideas fail. Attempts fail.
How many computer companies formed between 1976 and 1986? How many are dead. 99%? How many died in those ten years? Nearly the same.
Re:
Citation?
Re: Re:
Coin notes: crypto scams over reported
Chain link: fraud or futility
Daily cents: most scams are actually human ignorance
Coinbase: protecting yourself from scams
99% of what is negative trading is actually human stupidity. Nothing less and nothing more. Buying, selling, and trading via a licensed exchange based on the IS is never going to go wrong without some backup settlement in place.
You need to go off into the woods to find real scams beyond non-delivery. And that’s nothing unique to crypto!
Re: Re: Re:
Daily cents: most scams are actually human ignorance
That’s incorrect. Whilst a few scams can be put down to people just not paying attention, the vast majority are carried out by extremely sophisricated fraudsters who do way more than play on people’s good nature.
Re: Re: Re:2
In general you would have a point. In crypto it’s rather difficult to not blame a user.
I don’t necessarily believe the Daily Cents’ point of view as much as I do their reasoned results. You need to go through a rather detailed process to get scammed in crypto.
At least in the US, UK, EU, Japan, South Koria, and Singapore.
See you need a wallet. That’s easy to fake. But you need a source to transfer funds from. That requires an account. An exchange. And here is where the buck, of sorts, falls into your own lap. No legitimate licensed exchange carries false coin or token.
And any licensed exchange will post their license. easy verification with the state at hand.
Due diligence.
From there, the user is at fault. A text or email that grandma needs 0.1 Bitcoin to get out of jail? Your second cousin thrice remover’s ex wife needs monero in Zimbabwe?
A failed idea or a company folding or a plan falling apart? Not scams. Just life.
Blockchain has the potential (and is proving itself) to change computing forever. Much like computing in the early 90s, networking in the 90s, UGC in the 2000s and (yuck 🤮 social media) in the 10s: it takes trial and error to find what works.
But it’s still an infant tech method.
The microprocessor was first toyed with on paper in the early 50s. But it wasn’t until the mid 70s that anyone made one that worked reliably. And another 20 years to become ubiquitous. Anyone remember the 60430 or the 62cs or the …??? The itanium? Power came and went but today the late 70s ARM idea runs more computers than all Intel systems combined.
Scam is a misnomer. The vast majority of “scam” issues in BC are ignorance. They constitute failed ideas. Not malicious falsehoods.
And while I agree with the thought presented by Daily Cents that losses result from stupidity. I say the issue is lack of understanding and problematic pipe dreams.
The real problem is the general public seeing a gold rush where there isn’t one. I have 1.01 Bitcoin. I got it when I traded a Sonic 32x prototype for an unknown “cryptographic currency”
I was a literal billionaire for a fraction of a second due to a Lite coin chain trade error. $1.393.819.995.45 on Dec 15th 2021! Have the screenshot to prove it. (It’s exactly why I say taxing paper trails and not real cash is a shite idea).
Be it crypto, stocks, M-bonds, portfolios, caches, DRAs… stop blaming the method.
Start blaming the idiot who understands nothing of what they are actually doing.
There is not a legitimate exchange out there that doesn’t tell you right up from that there is an extreme inherent risk in crypto.
Listen. Don’t ignore
Re: Re: Re:3
Fuck small keyboards and drink
Much like computing in the early **80s*
Re: Re: Re:3
A text or email that grandma needs 0.1 Bitcoin to get out of jail? Your second cousin thrice remover’s ex wife needs monero in Zimbabwe?
Most people can’t spoof SMS, shit-for-brains troll, hence “sophisticated”.
Re: Re: Re:4
If you pay for it from a custodial wallet, it’s not a crypto scam. It’s a financial transaction scam. That happens to use crypto. Much like take citi or fake GS or fake Chase are financial transaction crimes. Not credit card crimes.
There’s a major difference in being defrauded out of your holding vs paying into an actual crypto scam. The former is not a crypto crime, but is routinely classed as one in counting so-called crypto crimes.
When credit card, wire transfer, money order… all other same-method crimes are not lumped in counting the same way.
What company is out there saying don’t use credit cards because they’re unsafe and you may give away money to a scammer.
Holding crypto and using it for payments isn’t any less or more risky than any other payment method.
There are actual crypto and BC scams out there. Getting hooked into one is not a method of a spiffed email or text. It’s a series of actions that must be taken, every one of which a normal person would be concerned with!
Re:
You can easily find a cryptoscam, just point your browser to https://meshpage.org
But there’s fine line between actual scam and a genuine product announcement. If I spent 10 years to prepare for the product to customers, can you any longer call it a scam? The customers are actually receiving valuable (==burdensome to create) product as exchange for their hard earned cash.
Re: Re:
The general coverage is on so called pump and dump tokens.
These can’t be accessed through established platforms.
You need to go out of your way to get involved in this stuff.
That’s no different than going down the rabbit hole and finding wonderland or the dark web. It’s not easy to find yourself in OZ by choice or by chance.
Look at how much effort it took a group of foolish college kids to find the devils’ rejects? Well off track, pouring rain, crazed hottie hitchhiker, and dolls in nooses! Yet they still go in.
Where do you stop and say, personal responsibility?
Because if you found an actual crypto scam you went looking for it!
Re: Re: Re:
Because if you found an actual crypto scam you went looking for it!
Right, just like the bank teller on the end of a gun went looking for a robbery! Lying troll.
Re: Re: Re:2
Plain English for you.
You can not get scammed out of cryptocurrency via a registered exchange.
Now if you want to pretend that some random spam message asking you to send money from a legitimate account to a scam account is somehow the fault of cryptocurrency…
I say it’s no different than giving your ssn to the fake irs or your credit card to fake Amazon for a refund.
Amazon is not the scammer. IRS is not the (well, anyway)
There’s a major difference between being fooled into doing something (personal fault) and being scammed in the open. When you give your credit info to a scammer that’s not a credit card scam. It’s a fake billing or fake refund scam. You don’t blame visa for the fake Amazon call.
Financial transfer scams that are paid for with crypto are not crypto scams. They are, like visa paid scams, a fake billing or refund scam.
So if you find an actual crypto scam (that is the product itself is the scam) you are WAY off the regulated path. You went looking for it. You set up a private wallet. Funded it. Conduct the transaction. All for a commodity that’s untraceable via a method that’s untraceable.
Calling a bad transaction with a criminal the same thing as spending the effort to create all the steps to buy iTakUrCach Coin… is irresponsible
That’s my point. Claims about scams in crypto and BC are fictionally inflated by including every type of crime involving any aspect of it as a single out of context number.
Re: Re:
You can easily find a cryptoscam, just point your browser to https://meshpage.org
So not only is your software nothing compared to Unity, Blender, et al., but it’s a cryptoscam as well?
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, that’s what they call web sites with a monetizing popup window that contains a link to opensea.
Re:
The fact is that crypto is chock full of scams which is because the entire concept is scam adjacent. Only the foolish and willfully ignorant get in to it in the first place which makes them prime targets for preying on their ignorance.
Possible that years earlier Walmart was sued and lost after denying a suspected money transfer because ‘reasons’. Even worse if the customer had non white skin. A lot of stupid policies like “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction” are due to past lawsuits.
A decade or two ago, many law enforcement jurisdictions were complaining that Walmart was was their #1 source of calls and cases due to a large number of shoplifting catches. They pressured Walmart to lower the numbers. What is a retailer to do? Stop the criminals and the ACLU complains about folks being processed and having a record due to ‘petty’ crime. Let them go and people complain about Walmart contributing to high crime rates.
I can see a similar scenario playing out today. If Walmart gets really tough on fraudulent transfer customers, how long before prosecutors and the ACLU start complaining about the flood of ‘trivial’ crime charges?
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Walmart is american company, so fraud is expected from them.
Re:
Terop is ignoramus, so copyfraud is expected from him.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Anonymous Cowards are part of criminal organisation called Anonymous
Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
Re: Re:
If its not yet in evidence, you should just update your evidence list now that the bluff has been called.
Re: Re: Re:
You made the claim; it’s your job to provide evidence to support that claim.
Re: Re: Re:2
This isn’t a claim. It’s response to the idiotic messages which do not provide evidence whatsoever for their claims.
Americans lost 29 billion to phone fraud. A lot of that was gift card scams and more. But sure, focus only on crypto.
CRYPTO RECOVERY
Well Crypto can make you or break you. But i know for sure that scammers are using a fake investment scheme to swindle gullible people. Although i was a victim, but i was saved when i contacted a crypto Recovery Agent via CryptoSwiftRecovery@gmail. com and my coins was Forced to reverse back to my wallet. So becareful out there guys