Sunday, March 03, 2013

Walmart Helping with Terrorist Money Laundering while Firing the Wrong Guy

I worked at Walmart as a Customer Service Manager. I was giving an associate at the service desk her lunch break. A customer came in to send a money gram to Canada in the amount of $5000. 

When attempting to send the money gram,Money Gram, would only allow her to send $1999.99. So I asked another CSM that previously worked full time at the service desk why it was telling me that. She said if she broke it down into separate transactions then she would be able to send the full amount. 

So she decided to send 3 different amounts. I asked who she was sending the money to and she said she was sending it to her family. So I sent the transactions for the customer, filled out the back of each of the money gram papers like I was supposed to do, and the customer left. 

When the associate I was giving lunch break to, came back, I asked if there was anything else I needed to fill out, and she said no, I did everything the way I should have. This associate was a full time associate that has worked at the service desk for 5-6 years. 

Two weeks later I was called to our Asset Protection Office. When in the office the Asset Protection Manager, my Assistant Manager, and my Zone Manager, were there. I was asked if I remembered about the transactions that I had sent two weeks earlier. I told them that I had sent a few different ones that day. So I was shown the ones for this specific customer and I told them yes,I remember. He asked if I filled out and faxed a specific form, which I had never seen before,and I told them that Iwas unaware of any forms other than filling out both sides of the money gram as I had been trained. I also informed them that I had asked the full time associate at the service desk, and she said that there wasn't anything that I needed to fill out except the back of the money gram paper.

I was then informed that the customer had been under investigation for money laundering and they had no choice but to let me go,and informed me that they weren't going to charge me, for a felony offense. In my opinion filling out a money gram for a customer is a simple service that Walmart offers and we do every day, and there is nothing felony about taking care of a customer as we were trained.It seems to me that if a customer was being investigated, that Walmart employees should not be put in the middle of such an ongoing circumstance and the employees job should not be put on the line. 

Walmart should have banned the lady from sending money and not put me in the middle of it. By not informing us of the investigation, it seems to me that Walmart is a part of the problem and not the solution, Walmart and this lady are laundering money, and I am terminated in the process. I was startled when being informed by my employers that Walmart knew this lady was laundering money to terrorists activities and allowed her to do it. Not only that, they are compromising their employees. 

I should not have been terminated and the service desk employee that misinformed me, was a part of the investigation, and should have been terminated instead of me, for lying. In a normal working environment, I would have been taken into the office and updated on any moneygram procedures, and not even a reprimand of any sort,  my supervisors should have been (terminated) for being involved in this, and Walmart should be closed down for money laundering. I have been informed that this lady is still actively sending money to Canada in large amounts.