I needed to send money to my son in Peru after a bank machine swallowed his bank card and he had no access to money.
I went on line at Western Union and completed all their intricate questions including my VISA number and then pressed to send the money. Western Union's internet site informed me that the transaction could not be processed and that I would have to go to an agent. However it turns out that Western Union had already taken the money out of my account. When I complained I was told
A) my money will be credited and that it will take 5 to 15 days and that there is nothing I can do about the delay
B) that although the money was approved by VISA it was not approved by Western Union by policy I had not used them before and it was for a relatively large amount ($500).
C) that they always get bank authorization for the VISA deduction BEFORE deciding whether to send the money
Since the refusal was based on automatic rules applied by computer these rules should and could be applied before seeking authorization for the transaction from my bank not afterwards. I consider this to be a type of fraud whereby Western Union gets to have my money for several days which combined with the money from thousands of other unprocessed transfers is valuable to them.
I was lucky enough to have other money to send to my son, but if I had not had additional resources I would then have been unable to help him since the money was already in Western Union's hands. According to the following web page many other people have not been so fortunate: http://ming. Tv/flemming2.php/_show_article/_a000010-001689.htm
Mary
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
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