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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 frau

by rmatt2000 4y ago

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.

stefan_ 4y ago
There are people philosophically opposed to laws against facilitating fraud? In many cases, the fraudsters hired on with Walmart and the company profited from these transfers.
- vivekd 4y ago
  I have a hard time believing that Walmart actually knew or intended for fraud to occur. I dont think they should be charged unless there is evidence they sought to facilitate fraud or violated some other law. These FTC regs are so vague they could charge any company for anything and I dont trust govt not to abuse that power
  - stefan_ 4y ago
    Only philosophical questions today! Who but the Walmart workers are Walmart? Of course the actions of their workers, in case they are fraudsters, are also the actions of Walmart, who graciously provided them it's infrastructure; it's complicity in the scam is what has to be established. In this case, the FTC found overt evidence that they were well aware of their complicity and chose to ignore it, across leadership. Hence this lawsuit. This is an obvious and necessary outcome; otherwise you could very well excuse just about any failing as just the legal misdeed of an isolated employee.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    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 being sued for some pretty specific violations not of "regs" but of laws: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1823012WalmartComplaint.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1823012WalmartC... Walmart will have their day in court, and they certainly can afford plenty of lawyers. I have no concern at all for the well-remunerated executives at the top of this business, who will face no legal consequences for their personal profit from hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud.
    - CodeSgt 4y ago
      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 behavior in some capacity.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ceeplusplus 4y ago
The answer is a lot simpler than that, which is that it looks good politically for them to oppose Democrats and voting no doesn't actually do anything so it's safe to do so. There are Republican AGs going after fraud cases all the time, you just don't read about it in national news.
thereare5lights 4y ago
This concern > opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. does not explain this policy > “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” If there is suspicion of fraud and yet still direct your employees complete the transaction, sure, maybe you're not literally in favor of fraud. But it does mean that you don't care if there's fraud. There's little daylight between not caring about fraud and being in favor of it at Walmart's scale.
- erikpukinskis 4y ago
  I think you're off a bit here. Not everyone is a fraud detection specialist. If Wal-mart had implemented the "trust your gut" policy you're advocating for, you're just going to get Ethiopian grandmas trying to cash out money from their grandkids and some random-ass Walmart employee deciding it's fraud because "she looks suspicious" or some nonsense and then she can't pay her rent. People should be trained to detect fraud if that's necessary. But saying "don't try to detect fraud" to random-ass employees whose job is not fraud detection seems eminently reasonable to me.
  - vkou 4y ago
    > People should be trained to detect fraud if that's necessary. But saying "don't try to detect fraud" to random-ass employees whose job is not fraud detection seems eminently reasonable to me. It's not reasonable because of the first sentence. If you're dealing with other people's money, your employees should be trained to detect fraud. If you can't be bothered to ensure that, you shouldn't be dealing with other people's money.
- thfuran 4y ago
  This concern > opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. does not explain this policy > “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” Sure it does. It's not Walmart's job to investigate fraud or any other crime. Their cashier's aren't trained in jurisprudence. And, frankly, a corporate policy of "deny service to customers who you suspect might be up to no good" is just a few racist employees away from another shit show entirely.
nostromo 4y ago
It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years the same AGs sue Walmart and Western Union for allowing employees to suspect fraud for the wrong reasons and denying transactions.
- kadoban 4y ago
  > for the wrong reasons Yes, they should probably be empowered to actually make decisions and trained to make them correctly. Is that asking so much?
  - geodel 4y ago
    Yeah it is asking too much. We have software engineers who couldn't write a sorry ass CRUD app while collecting $100K pa salaries. All the training and salary doesn't mean shit. With volume Walmart might be processing this kind of fraud is within cost of doing business.
    - kadoban 4y ago
      Then Walmart shouldn't be in this business if it's literally impossible for them to train and employ the people necessary to do it somewhere in the neighborhood of correctly.
MBCook 4y ago
Would you prefer their books have to be open to the government for inspection to look for the fraud?
- Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
  That's the current reality.

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.

stefan_ 4y ago

There are people philosophically opposed to laws against facilitating fraud? In many cases, the fraudsters hired on with Walmart and the company profited from these transfers.

vivekd 4y ago
I have a hard time believing that Walmart actually knew or intended for fraud to occur. I dont think they should be charged unless there is evidence they sought to facilitate fraud or violated some other law. These FTC regs are so vague they could charge any company for anything and I dont trust govt not to abuse that power
- stefan_ 4y ago
  Only philosophical questions today! Who but the Walmart workers are Walmart? Of course the actions of their workers, in case they are fraudsters, are also the actions of Walmart, who graciously provided them it's infrastructure; it's complicity in the scam is what has to be established. In this case, the FTC found overt evidence that they were well aware of their complicity and chose to ignore it, across leadership. Hence this lawsuit. This is an obvious and necessary outcome; otherwise you could very well excuse just about any failing as just the legal misdeed of an isolated employee.
- wpietri 4y ago
  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 being sued for some pretty specific violations not of "regs" but of laws: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1823012WalmartComplaint.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1823012WalmartC... Walmart will have their day in court, and they certainly can afford plenty of lawyers. I have no concern at all for the well-remunerated executives at the top of this business, who will face no legal consequences for their personal profit from hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud.
  - CodeSgt 4y ago
    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 behavior in some capacity.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ceeplusplus 4y ago

The answer is a lot simpler than that, which is that it looks good politically for them to oppose Democrats and voting no doesn't actually do anything so it's safe to do so. There are Republican AGs going after fraud cases all the time, you just don't read about it in national news.

thereare5lights 4y ago

This concern > opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. does not explain this policy > “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” If there is suspicion of fraud and yet still direct your employees complete the transaction, sure, maybe you're not literally in favor of fraud. But it does mean that you don't care if there's fraud. There's little daylight between not caring about fraud and being in favor of it at Walmart's scale.

erikpukinskis 4y ago
I think you're off a bit here. Not everyone is a fraud detection specialist. If Wal-mart had implemented the "trust your gut" policy you're advocating for, you're just going to get Ethiopian grandmas trying to cash out money from their grandkids and some random-ass Walmart employee deciding it's fraud because "she looks suspicious" or some nonsense and then she can't pay her rent. People should be trained to detect fraud if that's necessary. But saying "don't try to detect fraud" to random-ass employees whose job is not fraud detection seems eminently reasonable to me.
- vkou 4y ago
  > People should be trained to detect fraud if that's necessary. But saying "don't try to detect fraud" to random-ass employees whose job is not fraud detection seems eminently reasonable to me. It's not reasonable because of the first sentence. If you're dealing with other people's money, your employees should be trained to detect fraud. If you can't be bothered to ensure that, you shouldn't be dealing with other people's money.
thfuran 4y ago
This concern > opposed to turning private companies into arms of federal law enforcement agencies. does not explain this policy > “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” Sure it does. It's not Walmart's job to investigate fraud or any other crime. Their cashier's aren't trained in jurisprudence. And, frankly, a corporate policy of "deny service to customers who you suspect might be up to no good" is just a few racist employees away from another shit show entirely.

nostromo 4y ago

It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years the same AGs sue Walmart and Western Union for allowing employees to suspect fraud for the wrong reasons and denying transactions.

kadoban 4y ago
> for the wrong reasons Yes, they should probably be empowered to actually make decisions and trained to make them correctly. Is that asking so much?
- geodel 4y ago
  Yeah it is asking too much. We have software engineers who couldn't write a sorry ass CRUD app while collecting $100K pa salaries. All the training and salary doesn't mean shit. With volume Walmart might be processing this kind of fraud is within cost of doing business.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    Then Walmart shouldn't be in this business if it's literally impossible for them to train and employ the people necessary to do it somewhere in the neighborhood of correctly.

MBCook 4y ago

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

Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
That's the current reality.