Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt on a Kansas judge tossing out the state’s voter ID law and how the state helped consumers who were taken advantage of by the ‘Nigerian prince’ scam. After 10 years, a Kansas resident who took part in a Nigerian prince scam is getting $110,000 back, thanks to the Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Frederick Haines, a self-employed handyman from Wichita, realized he had been scammed after pursuing an inherited Nigerian fortune. “He was approached by the scammers. They told him they needed his help in order to get some money moved onshore,” Schmidt told FOX Business Opens a New Window. ’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co. Opens a New Window. ” on Tuesday. “He trusted them, helped them, and even went so far as to go to the airport to meet them and when they didn’t show up they knew he had been ripped off.”
Last year Western Union reached a settlement with the Justice Department after admitting some of its employees had been involved in helping scammers rip off victims in the U.S. and Canada. The company had set aside money and agreed to pay roughly $1.7 million back to about 350 Kansans.
“Went out and beat the bushes in Kansas. We searched for people,” said Schmidt. “We mailed 25,000 letters to Kansans who had wired money through Western Union in order to get to that small number whose wire transfers were scams and we got a lot of money back.”
Schmidt added that this is unusual because once the money is wired overseas it’s difficult to track it down and get it back. FOX Business
