As I first reported to you in January, Western Union, which provides money wiring services around the world settled fraud charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department and a number of states’ Attorneys General. Under the terms of the settlement which was achieved through a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, Western Union will pay 586 million dollars to be used to reimburse victims of the various scams facilitated by Western Union in conjunction with scammers around the world who used the services of Western Union to scam victims out of money and also to illegally launder funds.
Wiring money has long been a favored manner for scammers to request payment in a wide variety of scams because of the difficulty of tracing or retrieving the funds once they have been wired.
Among the scams uncovered by prosecutors were scams in which the scammers posed as family members of their victims desperately in need of money, phony lotteries and phony job opportunities.
Now, enterprising scammers are sending emails purporting to be from Maureen Ohlhausen, the Acting Chairman of the FTC. In the email you are told that you are eligible to receive money from the settlement, but that you need to provide your bank account information in order to receive your payment. This is a scam. The email is not from the FTC. In fact, the FTC is not operating the refund program in regard to the Western Union settlement although it does for other scams. The email is just an attempt to lure you into providing personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
If you were a victim of a scam in which funds were wired through Western Union between January 1, 2014 and January 19, 2017, you may be eligible for reimbursement through the forfeited funds Western Union is paying to settle this matter. Refunds are not yet being sent out. The Department of Justice is handling the refund process and will be verifying all claims before it begins the refunds. This may take up to a year. For specific information about making a claim, go to http://westernunionremission.com/ where you can find information about how and when to make a claim.