Walmart responds to FTC that lawsuit is unfounded and that it has saved “billions” of dollars to customers in money transfers

Walmart responded to the lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), regarding the money transfer services that the company offers to consumers and of which it is accused that it was made of the “ blind eye” by allowing illicit acts by fraudsters to their customers.

The retailer points out that since it began offering the money transfer service to consumers, it has done so with flat and low rates in its stores, thereby saving consumers, particularly those who are unbanked or underbanked, approximately $6, millions in fees by creating “significant competition in the money transfer industry”.

“Walmart has a robust anti-fraud program to help stop outside criminals trying to use the services of money transfer to commit fraud, and only a minute amount is alleged cula of transactions is fraudulent. In fact, Walmart has stopped hundreds of thousands of suspicious transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars,” the company said in a statement to the media.

The retailer highlights that despite the anti-fraud programs it has in place, the FTC is trying to blame the company for the actions of third parties , including fraud that the FTC itself has already acknowledged was caused by another company (referring to MoneyGram), while that company was under the supervision of the federal government through a compliance monitor, and during a period in which the that company’s own fraud prevention system had failed.

Walmart asserts that the civil lawsuit is factually wrong and contains legal flaws and emphasizes that it was approved by the FTC for a narrow margin after chairwoman Lina Khan denied Walmart a due process hearing directly from the company, and then the Department of Justice refused to take this case to court.

“Although the Department of Justice rejected this lawsuit and two of the FTC’s own commissioners voted against it, unfortunately the FTC chose to file a misguided lawsuit that distorts existing law by attempting to hold Walmart strictly liable for the wrongdoing of third parties,” the company says in the letter.

Walmart assures that it will aggressively defend itself against this lawsuit:

“We are going to continue working hard to prevent criminal third parties from using money transfers to defraud consumers. And we’re going to vigorously defend ourselves against this lawsuit. The FTC’s decision to go after Walmart raises serious questions, including about the government’s own conduct. Among other things, we want to know how the colossal failure of MoneyGram’s interdiction system could have occurred, for 18 months, while MoneyGram was supposed to be under government supervision. . We want to know when and how the government found out about this flaw, and what the government did to warn MoneyGram customers and agents like Walmart about this flaw,” the retailer stressed.

You can also of interest:
– FRC sues Walmart for facilitating money transfer fraud and requests restitution of damages for those affected