Wal-Mart Subsidizes Money Transfers for Illegal Aliens

michaelr · 08-01-2007, 05:54 PM

By Jim Capo Published: 2007-07-31 23:37

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

Walk up to the Customer Service Center in your local Wal-Mart store and you can confirm for yourself that the retail giant discounts international money transfers � thereby assisting illegal aliens, along with anyone else, seeking to send cash out of the US.

Follow this link to the original source: "MoneyGram Pricing Input"

COMMENTARY:

Editor's note: We confess that we are making two bold assumption in this analysis: 1) that most people using Wal-Mart's international money transfer service are not wiring funds to their bank accounts in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. 2) that illegal aliens can use the customer service counter and MoneyGram service at Wal-Mart as easily as anybody else.

Walk in to your local Wal-Mart and for every $200 you want to send to Uncle Joe in Des Moines you will be charged $13.42. But, if you want to send up to $500 to Tio Jose in Lazaro Cardenas, you can do it for only $9.46.

Is Wal-Mart, like Bank of America, actively soliciting business from illegal aliens? It would certainly seem so. But, is it fair to go farther and call this subsidizing illegal aliens?

We do note that the Wal-Mart service is conducted through the third party company MoneyGram (formerly Traveler's Express). While MoneyGram itself sets rates that discount their services for sending money to Mexico and beyond (even after adding in a currency exchange rate charge), Wal-Mart has adjusted its rates to be even more favorable for its customers wishing to send money to Mexico and beyond:

MoneyGram Domestic Charge = $12.00 vs. Wal-Mart $13.42

Money Gram "International" Charge = $9.99 vs. Wal-Mart $9.42

In effect, Wal-Mart is penalizing domestic customers so that they can offer a subsidized price to customers (legal and illegal alike) sending cash home to Mexico. (Just a wild guess but, if Wal-Mart is looking to break even, it appears that Wal-Mart customers might be sending three times as many MoneyGrams outside the country as they do inside the country.)

While international corporations like Wal-Mart and Bank of America are doing their best to rid the world of the ancient notion of nation states, we should do our best to avoid assisting them.

sidebar: A March 2007 conversation overhead in a Florida resort hotel elevator, which was passed on to us...
Morgan Chase Bank officer 1: "Great that BOA [Bank of America] is taking all the heat for offering credit cards to illegals."
Morgan Chase Bank officer 2: "Yeah, we'll wait six months and then nobody will notice when we do the same."

http://jbs.org/modules/bio/bio_image...ctoryb 200.JPG Jim Capo

Jim Capo is the John Birch Society's National Spokesman on Trade Policy, and a coordinator for North and South Carolina.

SOLUS · 08-01-2007, 06:41 PM

THANK YOU!

Another fine lesson provided by our friends and advisors at the JBS ^_^

Think for myself · 08-01-2007, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelr

By Jim Capo Published: 2007-07-31 23:37

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

Walk up to the Customer Service Center in your local Wal-Mart store and you can confirm for yourself that the retail giant discounts international money transfers � thereby assisting illegal aliens, along with anyone else, seeking to send cash out of the US.

Follow this link to the original source: "MoneyGram Pricing Input"

COMMENTARY:

Editor's note: We confess that we are making two bold assumption in this analysis: 1) that most people using Wal-Mart's international money transfer service are not wiring funds to their bank accounts in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. 2) that illegal aliens can use the customer service counter and MoneyGram service at Wal-Mart as easily as anybody else.

Walk in to your local Wal-Mart and for every $200 you want to send to Uncle Joe in Des Moines you will be charged $13.42. But, if you want to send up to $500 to Tio Jose in Lazaro Cardenas, you can do it for only $9.46.

Is Wal-Mart, like Bank of America, actively soliciting business from illegal aliens? It would certainly seem so. But, is it fair to go farther and call this subsidizing illegal aliens?

We do note that the Wal-Mart service is conducted through the third party company MoneyGram (formerly Traveler's Express). While MoneyGram itself sets rates that discount their services for sending money to Mexico and beyond (even after adding in a currency exchange rate charge), Wal-Mart has adjusted its rates to be even more favorable for its customers wishing to send money to Mexico and beyond:

MoneyGram Domestic Charge = $12.00 vs. Wal-Mart $13.42

Money Gram "International" Charge = $9.99 vs. Wal-Mart $9.42

In effect, Wal-Mart is penalizing domestic customers so that they can offer a subsidized price to customers (legal and illegal alike) sending cash home to Mexico. (Just a wild guess but, if Wal-Mart is looking to break even, it appears that Wal-Mart customers might be sending three times as many MoneyGrams outside the country as they do inside the country.)

While international corporations like Wal-Mart and Bank of America are doing their best to rid the world of the ancient notion of nation states, we should do our best to avoid assisting them.

sidebar: A March 2007 conversation overhead in a Florida resort hotel elevator, which was passed on to us...
Morgan Chase Bank officer 1: "Great that BOA [Bank of America] is taking all the heat for offering credit cards to illegals."
Morgan Chase Bank officer 2: "Yeah, we'll wait six months and then nobody will notice when we do the same."

http://jbs.org/modules/bio/bio_image...ctoryb 200.JPG Jim Capo

Jim Capo is the John Birch Society's National Spokesman on Trade Policy, and a coordinator for North and South Carolina.

Don't you think that is stretching the truth a bit? Is Walmart supposed to check everyone's green card before doing business with them?

michaelr · 08-01-2007, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think for myself

Don't you think that is stretching the truth a bit? Is Walmart supposed to check everyone's green card before doing business with them?

No I don't think that they should.

Do you not find it odd that it cost more to send moneys nationally rather than internationally?

Think for myself · 08-01-2007, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelr

No I don't think that they should.

Do you not find it odd that it cost more to send moneys nationally rather than internationally?

Noit really, as the other end works a lot cheaper than we do.

michaelr · 08-01-2007, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Think for myself

Noit really, as the other end works a lot cheaper than we do.

I guess, but wait aren't those American firms doing the business of transfers?

American Dreamer · 08-01-2007, 08:26 PM

HAHAHAH YOU THINK THATS IRONIC.

What about when you go to a pay phone it costs 50 cents to call locally but 25 cents to call mexico. What the hell is that shit?

Think for myself · 08-01-2007, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by American Dreamer

HAHAHAH YOU THINK THATS IRONIC.

What about when you go to a pay phone it costs 50 cents to call locally but 25 cents to call mexico. What the hell is that shit?

Dude, show me a pay phone that charges 25 cents to call Mexico.

Burning Giraffe · 08-04-2007, 03:32 AM

Michaelr,

This is simply supply and demand. More people are making international transfers than they are domestic transfers. The technology used to make the transfers doesn't operate under the laws of scarcity, such that they could make an infinite numbers of transfers. The more people they have to use the service, the lower their prices can be. They are looking to make a certain amount of profit while offering competitive prices. The lower their prices, the higher their market share - leading to higher profits for them. Which is what they are trying to get out of offering the service in the first place.

Does that make sense? Its not a conspiracy.