THE SCAM For years, scammers told their victims to go to a Walmart counter and wire the money. The grandson supposedly sitting in jail. The sweetheart overseas who just needed one more fee. The official who needed payment right now. The FTC says Walmart's wire transfer service became one of the scammers' favorite pickup spots — tens of millions of dollars in fraud-related transfers a year — and in 2022 the agency sued the company for not doing enough to stop it. Walmart settled in June 2025 for $10 million. On October 15, 2026, the FTC started mailing that money back out: real checks to 65,022 people who sent eligible money transfers at Walmart between January 2015 and December 2024. More than $9.8 million total.

THE RED FLAG A real refund check and a classic fake-check scam look the same sitting in your mailbox. The difference is what happens next. A fake check always gets around to asking for something — deposit this and wire back the overpayment, pay a small processing fee, hand over your bank login to verify. The FTC check asks for nothing. The agency's own line on this: it never requires people to pay money or provide account information to get a payment. If anything in the envelope, or any caller following up, asks you to pay, send information, or move money around first — that check is fake, no matter how official the letterhead looks.

THE RULE If you get one of these checks, cash it within the 90 days printed on it — it's real money, roughly $150 on average. Never pay anything to receive it: no fee, no bank details, no wire-back. And if you want to double-check, look up the FTC's refund page yourself and confirm the refund administrator (Rust Consulting, 1-833-472-1990) — never use a phone number printed inside the letter. Your throw-it-out instinct is right about surprise checks 99 times out of 100. This is the 100th time — just verify it the long way before you cash it.

Read it on the site: https://erawaeb.com/digest/daily/035-the-government-check-that-looks-like-a-scam/

One scam. One red flag. One rule. Every day. — ERAWAEB