Problems with Western Union

Back in 2014, I opened a UPS/FedEX shipping and receiving business in my small town. I closed it after one year - not enough business to pay for my time.

I also did copies and printing and became an agent for Western Union - sending and receiving money across the world. I researched the company and really came to like them. They were very focused on money laundering and had a lot of auditing procedures in place to detect any 'fishy' operations. They pre-date the telephone system and at one time, had the option to purchase all of the Bell patents which would have given them a monopoly on telecommunications. They declined. Oops!

Now it seems that there is some rot at the core - sad to see. From Forbes:

Western Union Slammed For Aiding Crooks, Agrees To Pay $586 Million
Money transfer giant Western Union has agreed to pay $586 million in connection with its failure to prevent criminals from moving ill-gotten money using its platform, according to federal authorities.

In a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, authorities describe insufficient or poorly enforced policies that resulted in the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from illegal gambling, fraud and drug and human trafficking.

Western Union admitted to criminal violations including its willful failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and aiding and abetting wire fraud.

“Western Union owes a responsibility to American consumers to guard against fraud, but instead the company looked the other way, and its system facilitated scammers and rip-offs,” says FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

Authorities say that employees allowed or aided and abetted fraudsters in processing illicit proceeds and that the company knew about it. However, rather than firing them, Western Union allowed the employees to continue working for the company and even paid them bonuses.

More at the site - I do hope that they are able to dig the rot out and prevent it from coming back. WU is a good company and I loved working with them.