The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Postal Inspection Service have been investigating Western Union who are a wire transfer company.

Western Union is often used by fraudsters as payments through Western Union cannot generally be tracked.

Western Union has admitted to aiding and abetting wire fraud and failure to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering programme and agreed to pay $586 million. That money is now being used by DOJ to give refunds to people who were tricked into using Western Union to pay scammers.

Victims of fraud who paid money to scammers via a Western Union wire transfer between 2004 and 2017 could apply for a refund.

There was a limited refund pot and there were thought to be 100,000s of victims, so not everyone got all of their lost money back.

The refund scheme covers any form of wire transfer fraud which involved making a payment via Western Union, so if you sent money to someone who wasn’t who they said they were, or you didn’t get what you were promised in return for a transfer you made, you can apply for a refund.

The process to get a refund did take years altogether but a great many people received all or part of the money scammed from them.

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A survey by Mumsnet showed that nearly half of answering the surveyed are worried about becoming a victim of fraud and ninety percent are not confident they can identify criminal tactics like vishing (making phone calls claiming to be from a reputable company but really seeking confidential information) and smishing (same as vishing but by text message).

More than a third of mums say they are approached up to SIX TIMES PER WEEK by individuals trying to get personal information from them. These approaches are by telephone, email and text messages.

To help tackle the problem, Mumsnet and the “Take Five to Stop Fraud” campaign – a national campaign that offers advice to help consumers prevent financial fraud – have teamed up to help parents confidently challenge criminals out to obtain personal information.

Well Known Scams

Here are some examples of well-known​ ​scams you should be aware of (according to Mumsnet):-

1. An email from HMRC offering a refund
2. A call from your bank about fraud asking you to move your money to a safe account
3. An email from a foreign prince offering untold riches if money is transferred to them now
4. A message from WhatsApp asking you to input financial information in order to continue to use the service
5. A call from a broadband provider to say the internet connection is running slow and their engineer can ‘fix’ the problem by taking control of your computer
6. An email from Amazon asking you to disclose personal information to reactivate your account
7. A text message offering money off at a supermarket if a link in the message is clicked on
8. A call from a builder or contractor asking for money to be paid directly to a new bank account
9. An email from your utility provider offering a refund
10. A student loans company email stating loans have been suspended due to incomplete student information

Take the time to stop and think before handing over personal information and certainly before paying online for anything.

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