Going Down

There are some rumored changes coming to Walmart.  Some of those have been written about, and today a Walmart worker added to that speculation.  Right now it’s rumored that Walmart will require ID verification for any money orders purchased over $100.  That ID capture will be inputted into the system and count against the $8,000 in daily money order “limit” currently by Moneygram to be purchased at Walmart MoneyCenters.  For those purchasing $8k or less per day in money orders using ID that’s not an issue or change that should affect you.  However for those doing single transactions to avoid ID information capture, often in the form of $999.12 or similar amount, this will have significant impact.

For those unfortunate few who have actually been banned by Moneygram for one reason or another, their only option to manufacture spend at Walmart is doing amounts under $1,000.  This new rule will have severe impacts on them and will basically shut them out of manufacture spending (MS), at least at Walmart.  There’s a guy in my area that routinely brings members of his family to purchase money orders at various Walmarts, likely because he’s Moneygram banned himself.  That strategy will generally still work depending on the store.

Today a cashier told a friend of mine that Walmart will also be asking who the money orders are for, or who’s being paid with them.  The Walmart associate was not sure if that information would be captured electronically, but at this point it’s plausible.  In a perfect world, that line of questioning might make sense to help curb people trying to do bad things.  However, in the real world it makes no sense whatsoever.  Do they think that the bad guys are going to start naming other bad guys in their drug or illegal schemes?  I can definitely see ID capture being enforced for MO’s purchased over $100, especially with licenses that can now be scanned.  Some licenses are still not scannable though.  For MoneyCenter employees to have to enter all of the customer information for non-scannable ID’s for money orders in smaller amounts, it’s going to just add to lines that are already going to be stressed in the upcoming holiday season.

The MS Walmart Titanic has likely hit the iceberg.  It’s probably going down, the question is when and how.  It would be very easy to stop money order manufacturing inside Walmart.  Until now either Moneygram or Walmart has been reluctant to do so.  We’ll see if either has the will to pull that trigger, as all signs seem to point in that direction.