aaannnd... they'll be wrong. But that hardly matters, as I've pointed out before.

Andyandy

Ike, I agree with your analysis, but you're wasting your time by making reasoned arguments based on black letter law and regulations. I laid out these exact regs months ago, and here we are again. There will always be posters who'll say, "yeah, but the WM moneycenter CSR said..." or "My cousin's uncle who's an IRS agent said..."

At bottom, though, being right doesn't really matter if some CSR/back office applies the regs wrong and ends up bringing The Man into your life. The real threat is the potential hassle of having to prove that you're right.

Andyandy

I don't believe you can stop a overzealous provider whether it is a bank or a retailer to file SAR to cover their butt. What do they got to lose, as a result they could always err on filing SAR as opposed non filing when they see an activity that is atypical.

Now, the questions is, will federal authorities ascertain that this doesn't fit the case of SAR and won't even bother you or you have to prove your innocence (which will cost money , time and heartburn), in the end you may very well Win the case.

thanks for sharing the link. It is by far, the most comprehensive and detailed explanation I've read on this subject. It is up to each individual to continue what they do or just fold up and quit cold turkey. MS is certainly not for the faint of heart.

I concur; we can't tell who will be the next one to get investigated but whatever their experience will be, definitely entails an adrenaline rush no matter what they say just to prove they're not doing anything wrong. There are those who say they *think* they convinced the LE they're not doing "monkey business" but are they 100% sure there's no more succeeding visits when they continue to do heavy MS volume?

as always, everything works well until one day, it doesn't.

:)

Having seen the LEO side of this I have no intention of getting so involved that it comes to having someone knock on my door. Well, that and I can't be bothered to jump through this many hoops, CC->VGC->MO->bank with the players changing the rules constantly and having to figure out a new link in the chain. Something like the mint or Bluebird/Redbird I could handle. This, not so much. Too much effort and exposure for me.

Like many things in life, it only looks complicated before you start doing it.

In all fairness, shouldn't we also view this from the retailer's perspective?

The rules are designed to catch the guy who has say $50,000 of illicit cash that he wants to get out of a dangerous place like his basement (where he does his business transactions) and into the safety of the banking system.

There are a whole lot of mechanisms in place to thwart him if he wants to deposit a little at a time to try to stay under the radar. If he buys small denomination money orders with cash, the guidance to the sellers of money orders for cash tell him to analyze those cash transactions over $2,000, make a record with significant details of sales of money orders for cash of $3,000 or more, and presumably file CTRs for sales of $10,000 or more of money orders for cash. The definition of a money service business is so broad, that presumably if he buys prepaid debit cards with that cash, and uses those prepaid debit cards to buy money orders and deposit them, the primary burden would shift to the seller of the prepaid debit cards for cash to do the reporting if neither the money order or the prepaid debit card is cash or currency. The government recognizes that it is possible that this guy with all the cash will thwart the reporting requirements, so it instructs everyone to consider filing SARs when a lot of money orders are involved, particularly emphasizing to banks that SARs should be filed if there are a lot of deposits of small money orders with sequential numbers.

So all of these retailers and banks design their systems to either do enough reporting or gather enough information to comply and not get the many subjective penalties that regulators and government auditors can impose.

And then we come along and declare that none of this applies if the process begins with a credit or debit card instead of cash. But that makes the retailer or money service business program their cash register recognize that cash was not used, and makes the bank gather enough documentation to convince themselves that cash was not used to buy the money orders. And they may still need to explain it to those regulators or government auditors.

All for customers they probably don't make a dime off of.

When I think of it from their perspective, I understand why they do not bother to always logic through the letter of the law. So I never argue when faced with a situation such as when WalMart demands a lot of information for prepaid/debit card transactions of $3,000 or more, even though the law might not really require it. I just choose to try to be an easy customer and stay below $3,000

And someone will be along to claim that you are structuring in 3... 2... 1..

:p I avoid WM for this very reason, IME their personnel are the most paranoid and least informed of any of the businesses I frequent.

As a thought experimant, if someone used cash to purchase VGCs at CVS (which would trigger structuring concerns) could an ambitious prosecutor argue that CVS's $2,000 daily limit amounted to conspiracy to commit structuring? I mean, hey, you can indict a ham sandwich, amirite?

Andyandy

As in poker, I upper the paranoia when a person could use a true debit card to buy money orders at WalMart by setting my daily card debit limit at $2,500.

So I was not choosing to buy two $1,000 money orders because they gathered information at $3,000. I simply could not buy $3,000 with the card. Of course now that seems unnecessary since you and Ike point out that they really should not have even been required to gather that information when a debit card is used for the purchase instead of cash.

I realize that not all WalMart branches are the same, but mine definitely did an entry in what bankers call the Daily Monetary Log for any purchases of money orders for $3,000 or more.

I just feel dirty every time I go into WalMart. :rolleyes:

If it wasn't the only place to reliably find Tyson Chicken Fries (which my son adores), I would be well shot of the place.

But you'd still need to explain why you've been purchasing only $2000 and depositing them into your bank account every X number of days.
And that is where you'd have a much higher chance of actually talking with federal agents.

I agree, which is why I never deposited them but paid credit card balances with them instead. That was easier when there were more banks that allowed deposits and CD purchases with credit cards, so there was always a credit card balance to pay. The business reason a person mails a money order as a credit card payment is because the credit card company likes it when the outstanding indebtedness is paid.

If there is an area of concern that FTers really underestimate, in my opinion, it is the IRS civil audit technique of making someone explain all of the deposits into all bank accounts. Hopefully, they would come to understand MSing pretty quickly when analyzing hundreds of thousands of dollars of deposits.

Maybe others still have luck with this, but with the capping and other forms of demise of the 5% rebate cards, and the elimination of doing this with free debit cards, it is pretty much just a nostalgia discussion for me, like the dollar coins. I do the 50K on AMEX Blue, a few bonuses here and there, and some minimum spends, but my costs are too high to make it worthwhile otherwise.

But I am glad if others are able to make it profitable.

WM employees are so poorly trained in AML and anti-structuring they probably won't even notice if it were actually happening.

I was at a store once where a person bought ~1.7k in MOs using cash and not a peep from the employee. When it was my turn though, the same employee gave me the "buying MOs with prepaids is money laundering" bs.

Walmart is terrible at AML oversight but i guess we cannot really blame them. it's a complicated subject and all they know is if gc (no name) are involve, it must be sketchy. I've seen money clerks selling 2k mo paid in cash several time, but i guess bc they also live in a cash world, this tender type is legit. anyone with minimal background in finance or legality will tell you, cash is the most sketchy payment. but do not try telling this to the money center clerk at wally.

i mean, even my friendly mall that sells gc will NOT accept cash cash but gladly take credit cards for up to 10k gcs. :D