FTC sues Walmart, alleging it let scammers access money transfer service

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The Federal Trade Commission is suing Walmart, alleging the company should have done more to keep scammers from using its money transfer services to carry out schemes that cost consumers tens of millions of dollars.

The retail giant dismissed the lawsuit as “factually flawed and legally baseless.”

In the complaint filed Tuesday, the FTC said Walmart failed to secure the money transfer services or intervene in scammer activities. “The company did not properly train its employees, failed to warn customers, and used procedures that allowed fraudsters to cash out at its stores,” the commission said in a news release.

Walmart offers domestic and international money transfer services in its stores through such services as MoneyGram, Ria and the Western Union. Customers can transfer money from one store location to another, or to one of the agents’ locations in more than 200 countries and territories. The service through Ria allowed customers to transfer as much as $2,500.

According to the FTC, scams involved soliciting money from customers under the guise of selling products in phone calls or prevalent schemes like impersonating an IRS agent. From 2013 to 2018, data from Walmart’s partners showed that fraudulent transfers sent or received at company stores totaled more than $197 million, with upward of $1.3 billion possibly connected to such schemes.

The FTC said thatWalmart told its employees to “complete the transactions”…

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