A lot of scammers want people to wire them money specifically, and anyone who was a part of their scheme may be entitled to part of $586 million.
The Federal Trade Commission has accused Western Union of "looking the other way" when victims wired scammers money.
FTC officials said Western Union was aware of the problem and received hundreds of thousands of complaints from people who claimed to have wired money based on bogus lottery winnings, prizes, family emergencies, online dating and other scams.
Western Union agreed to settle the case for $586 million. Now, people can request a piece of that money if they wired funds to con artists between Jan. 1, 2004 and Jan. 19, 2017. Victims must file a claim before Feb. 12, 2018.
As always, watch out for scammers taking advantage of this process. No one tied to this process will call you to talk about your claim or gather your personal information over the phone.
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