Did you win a lottery?
Are you claiming an inheritance?
Is this to help someone you know, but haven't spoken to?
Is this to pay a fine, tax or other government fee?
Seems pretty simple to rule out a lot of them.
He said, no, he knew it was real because they gave him the phone number for a bank and he called and the man on the other end confirmed it was real.
I implored him not to send any more money, but he continued to take out a postal money order for a few hundred dollars.
I told the cashier that he was being scammed after he left and they just said "ya, but what can you do?"
You can refuse to process the payment!
And some level of stupidity, either natural or appearing with age, qualifies people to lose their right to be stupid, ie. conservatorship. Unfortunately it is a very heavy legal process of a sledgehammer when i think in many cases it should be a surgeon knife.
Letting old people get scammed is unpleasant. Letting old people be disenfranchised by random clerks and passers by is substantially worse.
All the outcomes are bad, the one implied as an improvement here is much worse than the status quo.
Old people (or anyone) being scammed out of their life savings is bad. Full Stop.
What is worse is some random person in line being able to speak up and have someone's bank account effectively frozen. Yes, this story is about Walmart but the real issue is banks here, in my personal direct experience.
This topic is near and dear to me as I have personally seen how the banks do not consider money in your account to be your money - it is their money you can use in a prescribed manner. Step even a little off that reservation and you will find how much power others have over what you thought was your money. It can take months and years to resolve, and you generally have very little to no legal recourse.
Random dude in a line, or a random $18/hr bank/walmart cashier is not an appropriate place to put your fraud detection and denial systems in place. Advising a transaction is fraudulent is A-OK in my book. Having customers sign release forms - cool. Actually denying funds? This is something I, and others, find absolutely morally and ethically repugnant. Your money is yours to do with what you wish, including lighting it on fire. It is not your place to tell me I cannot do that.
Up until the point I do something illegal with my money, no one should have a single iota of say in how I spend, move, or deploy it.
It would absolutely be reasonable to continue fighting fraud by recognizing that these things can happen, and taking steps to combat them, without tilting it as far as you have seen in favor of banks essentially confiscating customer funds.
I sympathise with your position, but you cant have people awndong money to know drug dealera and terrorists and go "oh well, its their money" either
the additional angle to consoder is that we have duty of care to vupnerable individuals - elderly pwople and children.. like if a peraon with a degree in finance is buying crypto, no questions. but if someone in their 80s is investing in crypto becauae their neighbour tols them to, thats suspicious
i am writing this as someoje who currently can't send koney to family because the whole country has been sanctioned, so,
In this story the person in question did have their transaction questioned. Having it delayed is meaningless, there is no reason to believe a delay would have made them change their mind. This is a question of whether it is their money, the banks money or someone else's money and the correct answer is it belongs to the gentleman who is getting scammed. People will suffer less on average if we let them spend their own money as a matter of policy.
Which are abused nationwide
Why do you consider "lawful" as the only measure of "good"?
How you balance this equation is the hard part that takes effort and deep thinking and the subject to much discussion in many fields of philosophy.
Being a maximalist is the road to stupid dogmatic behaviour. The path to radical extremism.
I think this is a good example of the limitations of this principle. It precludes social cohesion and mutual responsibility.
He had a hell of a time doing it, not even as a matter of international wire logistics, but convincing the bank staff to "allow" him to do so because they were "concerned he was being scammed".
On one hand I appreciated their concern, but as he told them, "Do you see my (very very uncommon) family name? See his? It's my son." "Well, have you spoken to your son? Did he ask you to send him money on Facebook?" "No, WE offered to send him a gift towards downpayment of a house." "How do you know this is his bank account details?" "Because I asked him for them and he gave them to me?"
He got ... quite frustrated.