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Comment by revelation | Hacker News Reader

What a nice propaganda piece on Western Union, enabler of scammers worldwide and reliably preying on those disenfranchised parts of the human population we've decided can't have debit accounts.

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There are whole swathes of humanity without bank accounts, for those people WU can be a lifeline.

Not because they 'can't have debit accounts' but simply because there is no banking infrastructure where they live.

what about apple gift cards? heavily used by scammers. are you attacking Apple because malicious users abuse their stored value cards?

I don't know, what about Apple Gift Cards? And what, for that matter, about Samsung smartphones? What exactly is a non sequitur?

It's not a non sequitur; iTunes gift cards are also common instruments for scammers. They're also used legitimately, just like WU transfers are. The comparison is clear.

And yet, somehow, that is not the point I'm making. You can bring up something without having to raise the entirety of trivia that may also fit that pattern, you know?

So it's a non sequitur because obviously this is a thread on WesternUnion and they're bringing up Apple gift cards. It's like, cool, discuss that over there if you wish to.

I see your point about WU being famously used for fraud. The point of bringing up Apple gift cards is to provide a counter-argument that WU's services aren't inherently bad, even when some of the uses they're put to are. They enable fraud, but only as an incidental consequence of providing services to the disenfranchised that no one else is.

So you think humanity has a primary right to bank accounts? You want to force private entities (banks) to work with an obviously unreliable subset of the population? How do you prevent money laundering if you can't reasonably identify your clients?

What exactly is your solution?

>So you think humanity has a primary right to bank accounts? You want to force private entities (banks) to work with an obviously unreliable subset of the population?

Yeah, that's what's already the case here in Austria. It essentially means that if you don't have a bank account (and you're not in an ongoing litigation with the bank in question), then a bank MUST accept your application for a basic bank account.

See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedermann-Konto

Same in Canada. But by "basic" it really is basic. No online banking, no chequing. In-branch transactions with a teller only!

That is idiotic. The state forcing a business to accept a customer no matter their records?

That same state and other federal employers probably also mandate recipients of welfare or wages must be paid into a bank account. They get the upside of this so universal access to a basic bank account is a far compromise. Its insane imo that im forced to do business with a private bank for practically 99% of jobs including those of my own government.

I'm tired of market worship and holding the "rights" of business owners over the rights of everyone else. There are very few true markets, and that's not due to government intervention, it's because many goods and services become essential to modern life, or marketers artificially stratify in an effort to squeeze more money out of upper class consumers. Like what's the lightbulb market like these days? Toothbrushes? Sheets? It's all artificially stratified.

But let's say we allow businesses to not sell lightbulbs to White people. Hey it's their right, right? Then let's say that in practically all regions the majority of retailers would assert this right, making it pretty hard for Whites to buy lights ;). In what way is that good for society? What healthy, just society would allow that?

Libertarian ideas like this are all fatally reductive, and they fail entirely when evaluated on their effects on anyone who isn't the majority. Not everyone starts with the same advantages. Not everyone experiences the same setbacks and barriers throughout their lives. Unless we make policies to specifically correct these inequalities, we entrench them. Oh and hey look, that's exactly what we have in the US. It's not a coincidence.

It’s a simple account where all you can do is put money and get it back. There’s no overdraft.

We have the same law in France and the EU recently passed a similar directive.

Yes, society decided that the bank is allowed participate in the market that itself is based on public (and publicly financed) infrastructure, if and only if certain conditions are met. The bank's owners are free to accept or shift capital into another industry.

> The state forcing a business to accept a customer no matter their records?

The same with health insurance no matter what your prior situation is.

This sort of arrangement is very common for things the government thinks are 'must haves' in order to participate in society.

Other industries have a word for this: "common carrier" or "regulated utility".

Your electric utility can't kick you out just because they don't like you.

Yes, also in Germany.

Preventing money laundering should be an anti goal. It puts a huge burden on everyone to prevent a victimless crime just to make prosecutors' lives' easier.

Money laundering a victimless crime? Where do you think that money comes from?

Mostly, other victimless crimes. Drug imports, gambling, etc.

"victimless crimes. Drug imports, gambling"

Is this satire?

Solution? To what exact problem for crying shame?

You must be highly delusional to think refugees are the money laundering kingpins. And of course there are steps underway to ensure everyone can have a basic debit account:

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/financial_services/bank_accoun...

It's no different from access to water, housing, electricity, information, ..

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