Western Union transaction cancelled

lukin

I tried to pay someone in India recently by Western Union and the transaction was cancelled. I rang WU asking why it was cancelled (giving them the MCTN number) and all they said was that it was a security issue (nothing to do with me, it was the first time I'd used WU anyway).
It was the name of the person who was receiving the payment that caused the problem.
I offered to pay the person by PayPal but he refused so that rang alarm bells straight away. Is it possible this person has been flagged as a scammer?

Vic_08

lukin wrote: »

I tried to pay someone in India recently by Western Union and the transaction was cancelled. I rang WU asking why it was cancelled (giving them the MCTN number) and all they said was that it was a security issue (nothing to do with me, it was the first time I'd used WU anyway).
It was the name of the person who was receiving the payment that caused the problem.
I offered to pay the person by PayPal but he refused so that rang alarm bells straight away. Is it possible this person has been flagged as a scammer?

Did you get your money back?

TBH I would not send anyone I did not know to be 100% genuine money by WU as once it is collected on the other end you have no comeback. It is regularly used by scammers, anyone only taking payment by WU is immediately suspicious in my book.

lukin

Vic_08 wrote: »

Did you get your money back?

TBH I would not send anyone I did not know to be 100% genuine money by WU as once it is collected on the other end you have no comeback. It is regularly used by scammers, anyone only taking payment by WU is immediately suspicious in my book.

Yeah I got my money back,I went into the post office this morning and told the lady what the guy in India told me. I gave her the MCTN number from the receipt and she made a call. She came back and confirmed it had been cancelled and said the reason for the cancellation was there were too many transactions on his side.She then refunded me the money. That reason sounded a bit bizarre so I rang the WU helpline myself and got the answer I described in my original post.
The guy in India emailed me saying he "receives a lot of payments, so maybe it is over the limit". I don't know if there is a payment received limit in WU?

VincePP

Western union to someone you don't know = almost certain scam.

Never use wu unless you know the person well.

ScouseMouse

Up until recently, I was a Moneygram agent.

This sounds to me that WU spotted something and have blocked yer man. They don't turn away people for nothing. Just accept you have probably have had a lucky escape.

2RockMountain

Nothing to do with this WU scam, I hope?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057615501

lukin

2RockMountain wrote: »

Nothing to do with this WU scam, I hope?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057615501

No it was nothing to do with that.It was for a programming problem on a website. I posted on a forum and this guy replied saying he would do it for a small fee. I have since found a site called freelancer which is cheaper and looks legit so I will use that instead.
The reply I got from WU customer service as to why the transaction was cancelled went as follows:
"Western Union is required by law to screen all transactions for names identified on international government sanction watch lists. When our systems identify a transaction that may have been sent by or destined for someone whose name appears on one of the lists, Western Union are obliged to hold the funds until it is confirmed that the customer is not the same individual as the one on the list."

ibarelycare

You should exercise better judgment OP. Paying over money to some stranger on the internet who you know nothing about is beyond naive and you're incredibly lucky that WU cancelled the transaction. Use a genuine registered business/individual.