A common theme in many scams, including phony lottery scams and the infamous grandparent scam, is that the scammers will require the victim to wire money rather than use a credit card or a check.  Once money has been wired, it is all but impossible to trace or stop payment.  In response to this problem, the Federal Trade Commission investigated both Western Union and MoneyGram and settled these claims in 2017 and 2009 respectively. According to the terms of both settlements, the companies agreed to make substantial changes in how they did business in order to reduce the amount of scammers using their services. While Western Union is apparently adhering to the terms of its settlement, the FTC determined that MoneyGram was not implrementing the fraud prevention standards agreed upon and consequently, the FTC brought new charges against MoneyGram which new charges have now been settled. Among the terms of the new settlement is a payment by MoneyGram of 125 million dollars to the FTC which will be returned to people who were victimized by scammers through MoneyGram since 2013. The exact date for eligibility for a refund has not yet been determined, but I will report to you about it as further details become known.
TIPS
Whenever anyone you are dealing with requests that payment be made by way of a wire transfer, you should immediately be skeptical because of the near impossibility of getting your money back if the deal is a scam or anything goes wrong.  Using a credit card for payment is much safer.
If you believe that you are eligible for restitution through this settlement, keep checking in with http://www.scamicide.com and as soon as the details for making a claim are determined, I will report them to you. Better yet, you may want to take this opportunity to subscribe to Scamicide.com for free so that you will be sure not to miss this important information.
It is also important to remember that scammers will try to take advantage of the news of this settlement and may contact people by phone or email indicating that they represent the Settlement Administrator and asking for a payment to participate in the settlement. There never is a charge to participate in such refund and restitution programs.
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