Thread: Is this money laundering?

A while back I was trying to get some money from a friend via western union.

Not only did I have to drive all the way downtown, but the process was a pain in the ass for several reasons. I've come up with a solution to get money from home in just minutes from anyone whether they're across the street or around the world.

1. Sender goes to xyz.com and enters their cc info, the amount they wish to send, and the name of the person receiving the funds.

2. website charges their account for the amount + 10.00 fee

3. A 16 digit code is given to the sender

4. The sender shares the 16 digit code with the intended receiver

5. Receiver goes to website and enters their name & the code and xyz.com prints out a check made to them.

6. Go to bank, cash check.

(even easier than paypal)

checks are printed with magnetic ink so that mechanical readers can process them...unless the person at home has this ink, I don't see this being viable.
It would be under scrutiny for sure though, especially for any transaction over $10k.

I used to have a boss that printed our pay checks from his office.

The whole check or the pay to and amount fields?

Originally Posted by Stance

I used to have a boss that printed our pay checks from his office.

Correct. But he ordered the checks with the MICR encoding already on them. All he printed was the payee, date and amount.

^^ that's what I was thinking...

Originally Posted by wickedlysane

The whole check or the pay to and amount fields?

It's been years, but I guess the whole thing, sense all I had to do was deposit it.

You don't necessarily need magnetic ink...It's just used for speed processing. Just you run the risk that the check is passed through a non-optical reader, and then it just has to be processed manually.

Also, chances are, credit card companies would consider this to be a cash advance, so the sender would be paying a transaction fee to both the credit card company and the "transfer" service. There is no grace period on cash advances, so the sender would begin to accrue interest as soon as the transaction posts.

There's also the question of internet fraud. I'm not sure how CC companies would look at a service like this. Can you go to Western Union and use a credit card, or is it cash/debit only?

The real question is: can that be used as a money laundering technique? Yes, it can. There lies the crime.