Walmart routinely works with law enforcement and government agencies to stop fraud and other crime. Walmart Works with Law Enforcement, Non-Profit, and Private Sector Partners to Combat Fraud Below are some notable steps that Walmart takes to ensure that customers can feel confident using our financial services products. Our efforts have been incredibly effective, resulting in fewer than 2 out of every 10,000 money transfers at Walmart being reported as possibly fraudulent in 2021. Walmart has stopped hundreds of thousands of suspicious transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. While saving consumers billions by shaking up the money transfer market, Walmart has also worked hard to keep those same consumers safe by helping stop third-party criminals from using money transfers to scam customers. As explained in the Wall Street Journal, by offering money transfer fees “as much as 87% below the competition,” Walmart’s innovative and disruptive entry into the money transfer business has been especially beneficial to “financially vulnerable” unbanked and underbanked consumers who often lack access to traditional financial services. This new service gave consumers another choice to send or receive cash in a market that had been dominated for years by MoneyGram and Western Union. In 2014, Walmart partnered as an agent for Ria to launch Walmart2Walmart, a new low-cost money transfer service built around transparent, everyday low prices. Over time, Walmart saw an opportunity to lower prices for our customers by introducing a white label money transfer service.

Walmart first began offering money transfers as a MoneyGram agent in 2005, and later became an agent for Western Union. Walmart serves as an “agent” of other companies that actually transmit the money from one location to the other. Keep reading to learn more about how Walmart has disrupted the money transfer market to help consumers, how Walmart fights fraud, and the problems with the FTC’s lawsuit. Pro-consumer competition in the money transfer industry is too important to be threatened by the unfortunate decisions of a few Commissioners of the FTC, and Walmart remains focused on fighting fraud and delivering low prices to our customers. Walmart will defend against this lawsuit aggressively. In fact, it was approved by the FTC by the narrowest of margins after Chair Lina Khan refused Walmart the due process of hearing directly from the company, and then the Department of Justice refused to take this case to court.ĭespite the fact that the Justice Department took a pass on this lawsuit and two of the FTC’s own Commissioners voted against it, the FTC has unfortunately chosen to pursue a misguided lawsuit that distorts existing law by attempting to hold Walmart strictly liable for the wrongdoing of third-party criminals, despite all our efforts to stop fraudsters. This civil lawsuit is factually misguided and legally flawed. In fact, Walmart has stopped hundreds of thousands of suspicious transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.ĭespite Walmart’s anti-fraud programs, the FTC is trying to blame the Company for actions by third parties, including fraud the FTC has already acknowledged was caused by another company-while that company was under federal government oversight through a compliance monitor, and during a period when that company’s own fraud prevention system had failed. Walmart has a robust anti-fraud program to help stop third-party criminals who try to use money transfer services to commit fraud, and only a miniscule number of transactions are even alleged to be fraudulent. Since Walmart began offering our customers flat, low fee money transfer services at our stores, the company has saved consumers-particularly the unbanked and underbanked- an estimated $6 billion in fees by bringing important competition to the money transfer industry. Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuit:

Read more about the arguments in Walmart’s motion to dismiss here.Ī narrowly divided Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has filed a misguided lawsuit against Walmart regarding money transfer services that the Company offers to consumers. Walmart’s brief lays out several reasons why the FTC’s case is legally flawed and shouldn’t go forward. 29, Walmart asked the federal court handling the FTC’s lawsuit to dismiss it.

Motion to dismiss credit card lawsuit