There is but one more scam in the among the growing list of fraudulent financial operations, perpetrated by con artists seeking to take advantage of people in need of money. This scam solicits unsuspecting individuals to cash checks for this group. The checks are written in the name of a fictitious company. The victim cashes the check through his personal bank account, wires the cash through a wire service. The victim is instructed he could keep roughly ten percent of the value of the check as his commission.
But then the check bounces and the victim is out the full amount of the check. He seeks restitution. There is none. The wire service informs him that there is really nothing he could do.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission thought otherwise. After investigating the wire service practices of MoneyGram, the wire service company agreed to pay out $18 million and take on a series of anti-fraud measures. This came after the Federal Trade Commission decided MoneyGram wasn’t doing enough due diligence and conducting adequate background checks on suspicious agents. They failed to terminate suspicious agents, it was alleged. According to the report, MoneyGram supposedly ignored warnings from law enforcement authorities and form its own workers that widespread fraud was being conducted over the MoneyGram network.
So now MoneyGram will conduct the necessary background checks and scrutinize or terminate suspicious agents. According to an article in Philly.com a number of MoneyGram’s Canadian agents may have acted in collusion with the scam artists and are being investigated. However, a word to the wise. Even if y or any other wire service agency, or for that matter any other third party is conducting background checks, approach all offers with caution. Especially when the offers seem almost too good to be true, or the financial compensation looks like easy money. Easy money means there is often no money. Unless the money at the end of the scam is your money. The money you lost.
