The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing Walmart Inc (WMT  ) alleging that the retail giant failed to prevent scammers from defrauding consumers out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The FTC filed charges with an Illinois district court, according to its press release. In its legal filings, the FTC notes the common use of money transfers to facilitate many distinct types of fraud, such as lottery scams or fraudsters impersonating government agents. In most cases, victims are directed to send money using transfer services at stores like Walmart or 7/11 (parent company Seven & I Holdings, (SVNDY  )) to pay "transfer fees" for their foreign lottery winnings, or the "fines" owed to a fraudulent government agency.

It is common for companies with transfer services to train employees to spot signs of fraud and avoid processing suspicious transactions. Walmart, the FTC alleges in its filing, continued to process transactions "without adopting policies and practices that effectively detect and prevent these transfers."

"While scammers used its money transfer services to make off with cash, Walmart looked the other way and pocketed millions in fees," said Samuel Levine, the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Consumers have lost hundreds of millions, and the Commission is holding Walmart accountable for letting fraudsters fleece its customers."

The regulator cited a number of instances where fraud investigations by law enforcement found frequent reliance on Walmart as a destination to facilitate transfers. Between 2013-2018, the FTC states that more than $197 million in payments that were the subject of a fraud complaint were made through Walmart, with over $1 billion in other suspected payments.

For its part, Walmart has come out in defense of its anti-fraud policies. The retailer has claimed that the agency is looking to blame it for fraud attributed to another company, and that it would defend its "robust anti-fraud efforts."