I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jody from the Mod Squad and our member Maureen (1945tm). Yesterday and today these ladies testified before the House of Representative and the Senate in Minnesota about scams and their personal experience. The bill that was presented will regulate the money transfer companies. Jody will explain to you all the details about it.
I hope that you will all stand up with me and applaud these two ladies for their bravery in speaking out. This may seem a small step, but it is a huge push in the right direction. I can not even being to explain how huge this is and I don't think I could ever express how proud and grateful I am to Jody and Maureen for doing this. In standing up and speaking out they not only did it for themselves but they did it for all of us.
I could gush on and on cause today they are both my heroes, but I will turn it over to Jody and she can explain to you what happened.
Hugs,
Barb
Owner / Peer Counselor
http://www.romancescams.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Oh gosh, Barb. Thank you but I'm not so sure I deserve gushing. Reen did a
wonderful job and I am very, very proud of her courage and strength. This new
piece of legislation will make it mandatory for all wire transfers companies to
obtain the permission of the sender to allow the funds to be picked up anywhere
other than the city the sender designated. It also allows the sender to obtain
the name of the person who picked up the money.
Here is a press conference that explains it in detail.
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/media ... s=&sid=754" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(safe link)
The very exciting part is that the Chair of this sub-committee committed to
developing a task force to study the depth of scams today. This is a very real
shift and the first of it's kind in the nation.
And Reen, we couldn't have done it without you. Thank you so much!
hugs-
Jody
Peer Counselor/Moderator
I agree with Barb, this is a really huge step, kudos to these ladies for trying to make a difference. And most importantly, this is a FIRST step, lets hope this is just a beginning, at least our politicians started noticing us, scamvictims, and our problems.
Of course, we all know how WU locations operate in Nigeria, where they can pick up money at any location, sent to any country to any name, without documents, practically from a knee behind the corner, but if this bill passes, it will be a huge blow for Russian scammers, who pretend to be from different cities, while in reality being in Yoshka and Lugansk, and also it will be a blow for mules and scammers in other countries, particularly in Malaysia, where WU locations are not as corrupted as in Nigeria.
Anyhow, this is a good start, I dunno if there is any petition online to sign to support this bill, if anybody knows, please post.