Fund Targets Victims Scammed Via Western Union
Summary: Western Union settled with the FTC and DOJ in January 2017, admitting to willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and aiding and abetting wire fraud, and agreed to forfeit $586 million. The FTC announced that people who lost money to scammers who directed them to pay via Western Union between January 1, 2004 and January 19, 2017 can file claims at FTC.gov/WU before February 12, 2018, with the claims process potentially taking up to a year.
Key Takeaway: The $586 million forfeiture exists because Western Union's agents were involved in fraudulent schemes and the company failed to act, per the DOJ - a reminder that the payment channel a fraud victim is steered toward is often the one with the weakest controls, and that remediation can arrive more than a decade after the losses.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Fraud & Scams
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