As I first reported to you a year ago, 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 is paying 586 million dollars 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 method 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.
You can now file a claim if you lost money due to scams involving payments by Western Union between January 1, 2004 and January 19, 2017.  Claims originally had to be filed no later than February 12, 2018. However, the date has now been extended to May 31, 2018.  Claims administrator Gilardi & Co. is overseeing the claims process.
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 586 million dollars in forfeited funds Western Union is paying to settle this matter.   All claims will be verified by Gilardi & Co. before a check is sent.  There is no charge for filing a claim.  For specific information about filing a claim go to the “FTC Scam Refund” tab in the middle of the first page of Scamicide.com and click through and then scroll down to the Western Union information.
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