Yet another WU thread

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Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:10 pm

I was also disappointed by the scammers when I didn't get any email.

So what I did is Google for ' mugu' and 'guestbook'. Then I entered my email in plain text everywhere.

Make sure your harvesting email is in plain text all over the place on the internet. Wait 7 days for the Nigerian princes to contact you to unblock their millions. Run of the mill stuff, you will need to pay some money upfront for the 'approval'.

Play your game avoiding Western Union or Money Gram and shit like that. Request bank accounts which you then report to a Moderator.

I myself report personally to the banks. I was very very very disappointed right now with the First National Bank (FNB) of South Africa. They said they would not accept any reports of scamming activiites on any accounts unless the South African police does such a request. Since I am abroad, I am not sure how to file a case with the SA police/authorities.

Point in case, FNB supports scammers and it will require a much stronger force to beat their game.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:43 pm

^^
Jim, you have just observed why we do it the way we do. Please report the accounts to the mods in the future as per usual.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:09 pm

Jim, you should listen to your mentor. I have great respect for the way he teaches mentees and have no doubt he has explained the correct procedures. Eater has spent a ton of time establishing relationships with banks and they tend to take our reports over those of an individual.

Here is a link: http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=253518

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:16 pm

JimStanson wrote:

I myself report personally to the banks. I was very very very disappointed right now with the First National Bank [/b](FNB) of South Africa. They said they would not accept any reports of scamming activiites on any accounts unless the South African police does such a request. Since I am abroad, I am not sure how to file a case with the SA police/authorities.

Point in case, FNB supports scammers and it will require a much stronger force to beat their game.

@Jim - I think that I have already told you that we have contacts in just about every Financial Institution across the planet ... and that includes First National Bank -South Africa, who are far from Lad Friendly. I can guarantee that you are contacting the wrong people.

Why on earth do you join a club and then not use the facilities ? -

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:12 pm

@spot,
Just to avoid any confusion, I had sent the email to FNB a while ago, before we wrote to each other!

Naturally, I will take the advice I get here seriously. Further bank accounts I get will be directly sent to the moderators to shut these scammer accounts.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:00 pm

We also fry stolen credit cards.

In fact there is almost no variety of financial instrument or other asset that we cannot burn, sink or blow up. It's all about preventing the lads from getting any use or enjoyment from all the stuff they steal, and we've got very good at that.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:26 pm

Hmm..can you guys actually get Western Union to freeze a transfer or tell the receiver end of Western Union to copy the ID (passport etc) of the person picking up money using an mtcn number that has been reported?

That way, the scammers can be tracked down.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:25 pm

Well done on the pig Jim clapping

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:26 pm

We can't get WU to provide us with information as that would be an obvious breach of data protection laws pretty much anywhere. Also we can't interfere directly with a transfer for similar reasons. We can advise Western Union of a problem, but that's about it. Cash transfers are something of a law unto themselves.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:38 pm

I would beg to disagree that Western Union cannot co-operate on this.

If Chris Hansen can get the Lottery offices in California to co-operate and catch Lotto scammers, I am sure there is a way for WU to do the same to catch a scammer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tPAwrLCF00)

The matter involves concrete evidence that one is dealing with a scammer. The scammer provides a name. A pseudo-victim decides to send money to that name, provides a question/answer and the MTCN number is generated except that the latter is not an ordinary MTCN number since WU is informed that the receiver is a scammer. (Remember, we have concrete evidence about that, through the emails sent by the scammer).

WU and the police co-operate to catch the scammer at the other end.

Why is that difficult?

If WU would not do that, am I wrong to say that WU helps scammers with their business?

Data protection is an issue. However, with a legal body enforcing WU to co-operate, this whole system can be cracked down. Recall that a child predator was caught after Google mail's automatic scanners picked up on certain patterns?

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 1:11 am

Jim,

California lotto is much different than WU in a foreign land. WU does a lot to make fraud known to their consumers, I see pamphlets all the time in a place that offers WU services.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:11 am

JimStanson wrote:

I would beg to disagree that Western Union cannot co-operate on this.

You're right, they can cooperate - but the premise that they aren't is entirely wrong. So, you don't get a biscuit, even looking at me like that.

Western Union are doing a lot to prevent fraud. They print warnings on their customer facing documents, put up posters, tell people not to send money to strangers, but in the end if someone wants to send money they will ignore all these warnings. There really isn't a lot you can do about that except to educate people as hard as possible.

Remember there is almost nothing that can't be abused. Amazon vouchers, prepaid CCs, Green Dot, commercial bank accounts, anything. Wu are at least trying.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:28 am

JimStanson wrote:

If Chris Hansen can get the Lottery offices in California to co-operate and catch Lotto scammers, I am sure there is a way for WU to do the same to catch a scammer.

Chris Hansen is not a bunch of private volunteers in the internet spending their own spare time and resources for making the lads' lives miserable. Likewise Eater is not a TV-show.

Quote:

The matter involves concrete evidence that one is dealing with a scammer. The scammer provides a name. A pseudo-victim decides to send money to that name, provides a question/answer and the MTCN number is generated except that the latter is not an ordinary MTCN number since WU is informed that the receiver is a scammer. (Remember, we have concrete evidence about that, through the emails sent by the scammer).

WU and the police co-operate to catch the scammer at the other end.

Why is that difficult?

Because any credible police force on this planet bases its work on laws and regulations. What you are describing here is practically entrapment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment). Not a good practice in the first place and when done by someone like us, even worse.

To act, the LE needs a crime and a victim. We are not victims of a crime: we are baiters. We are fictitious anonymous persons who go around dealing with scammers, being fully aware of what we do. The problems start when any LE worth his salt asks "OK, so how did you initiate contact with this person and why did you send him the money?"

(Capone, Bruin or anyone else with more deep knowledge of legal matters please correct me if I'm wrong).

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

I split all of this from here, as it was completely derailing wannabebaiter's thread.

As an aside, I detest these WU discussions.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 10:21 am

This whole premise involves a baiter actually sending money to a lad, so the scenario is irrelevant.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 4:12 pm

WU doesn't act or disclose without an investigatory subpoena from Law enforcement. Which would mean LE involvement in the bait (entrapment) and LE involvement in the country where the scammer is located. Highly unlikely that the Feds and a US attorney would be able to find which lad this is and contact their opposite number over a non-existent payment of a couple hundred dollars.

Nor should WU act without a subpoena. They do thousands of legitimate transfers each day They aren't LE and they shouldn't have to compromise their data on someone's say so.

Much as we might wish that the cops are hanging over the shoulder of every scammer that shows up at WU all over the world, it's not happening. And this, of course, assumes that the scammer is making the pick-up rather than sending a mule.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:17 pm

Last year, one of our affiliated sites published a Blog article on this subject: http://www.antifraudnews.com/moneygram-western-union/

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 8:58 pm

You have to remember, not all WU & MG outlets are in an outlet unto themselves. They are often in little markets/liquor stores or in some cases a Rite-Aide (pharmacy chain) or Wallmart where the teller sending the money isn't an actual WU or MG employee, they just offer WU or MG services and the person doing the transaction is actually an employee of the store offering WU/MG services.

If there is a way for a scammer to exploit a service for their gain, they will. We do our best to prevent that from happening.

My fiance and I spent the summer camping and there was a WU outlet in the (way over priced) country market, a guy came in wanting to send money to Nigeria and the employee of the country store refused. The policy of the country store made that decision, not WU. I don't know the exact reason why, but the employee of the country store told me that the owner of the country store did not want to be party to sending money to Nigeria (or any country in Africa) because it was likely to be a scam. I then informed her that not all transactions to Africa are scams and Africa isn't the only country where scams take place. I told her what we did and all of the blah blah blah of scammers and their scams. Anyway, my point is, it would be impossible to do what you are suggesting. Most transactions of WU & MG are legitimate and scammers have found a way to exploit it.

TM, thanks for the article, pulling it up now! Razz

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 10:36 pm

TM - Great website, I bookmarked it was there is a wealth of information there. Not a lot that we don't already know, but reinforcement of what we tell our friends and loved ones. Especially those who are in the mist of a scam and don't want to believe you, because, you know, we're baiters and we see scams everywhere (seriously been told that) Rolling Eyes

I believe in most money transferring places (like WU & MG) there is a sign say "DO NOT SEND CASH TO ANYONE YOU DO NOT KNOW OR HAVE EVER MET IN PERSON!"

Sometimes, it's good old fashioned common sense that will steer a person away from being scammed.

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:55 am

Some Buddy At Home wrote:

You have to remember, not all WU & MG outlets are in an outlet unto themselves. They are often in little markets/liquor stores or in some cases a Rite-Aide (pharmacy chain) or Wallmart where the teller sending the money isn't an actual WU or MG employee, they just offer WU or MG services and the person doing the transaction is actually an employee of the store offering WU/MG services.

To add to this, there now are also automated WU and MG machines which allow you to send money without ever talking to a person. A 7/11 that I often frequent has a MoneyGram one which basically looks like an ATM. I doubt the employees at that 7/11 have much of anything to do with it... if the service there is any indication, there isn't much of anything going on in their brains at all. Rolling Eyes

I've never used it myself, but I would imagine it has plenty of screens that pop up mid-transaction with the standard anti-scam warnings.