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western union compliance department
 

Hi, today I got a call from western union's compliance department asking me some questions like: where did my money come from, what's my occupation, why did I send the money, etc. They say they need to conduct the survey if the total amount you send exceeds a certain amount. I think I've sent about $10k this year. Has anyone else experienced this?

Nope, and I've done a lot more then that over the years.

Do you have a membership with them by any chance?

what membership?

I have a Western Union gold card. Its like a preferred card that you earn points with based on the fees you spend on Western Union. I have been sending anywhere from 2k to 4k weekly for the past three months and I have yet to get a call from them

I've sent about 20k in the past 6 months.

Who on earth are you sending all this money to through WU?

We send it to our suppliers. If you build a good relationship with a supplier you will get better pricing when sending money thru WU because the supplier won't have all the fees to pay.

Is it just a survey? I'd be careful to not give them specifics, it could be a phishing phone call.

Yes. I received acall from their compliance department and they told me their computer system flagged me for sending over a certain amount in a certain time frame and that they were required by the U.S, government to do an interview with me. At first they were concerned for me (lol) being scammed. Then it became a concern about gambling. Then money laundering.
They asked me to supply them with receipts from the people I sent money so I can prove to them how the people were spending the money. I supplied as much as I had and could get from my receivers but it did not satisfy them.
The result of their investigation was to block me from using their services.
Anyone else have an issue like this?

I sent them invoices and told them I was buying stuff to resell and they did believe me. My brother did the same and they also believed him. It was a long like half a year ago, so maybe they're getting more strict now. I tend to send via bank transfer now.

You can send WU payments in any name you like, you only need your real name to recieve money.

WU tracks you by the receiver names also. I once asked my friend to send to the same person in a WU center and they didn't let him do so, however in another center they let us do it, but they also said WU can track receiver names. It's best to send from with different names to different person (for example, my supplier got 2 receiver names).

I sent to someone thru western union.com and they refused to pay her because they told me (after a long battle to get an answer why) that she received money from another person and they did something wrong that cost WU money. BUT they told me I could send to her through an agent location. So I did and it worked. It seems you can do through an agent that may not pass the mustard online. Strange.

WU has a very sophisticated computer program that monitors all sorts of dates, amounts and patterns based on the guidelines of the criteria from the federal government. (IRS/AML). The whole financial community. Banks, securities, money services etc are required to file suspicious activity reports when their computer system flags something based on their criteria.

I`m blocked for over a year now. Using Money Gram now.

Do you know if they filed a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on you?

Just cycle your senders and receivers. 6-12 people on each end (can be anyone... employee, driver, maid, etc., it's not like you have to trust them as you can be standing right there). You'll get lost in the mix (not that they really care IMO).

:)

WU started asking for WAY too much info after I sent like 3k with them.

Where are you guys sending that there is so much problem?

Just got a call from them today..... So they are going to be difficult, eh?

That's ok, I once sent $500 and the WU agent started getting all into my business, starting asking me questions like:

Question: Do you know this person?
My Answer: No, I'm just sending $500 to random people

Question: Why are you sending this money?
My Answer: Because I want too.

Question: Is this money for Goods?
My Answer: Does it matter?

Then after all the stupid questions the WU Agent still f'ed up the Name of the Receiver! :doh:

My supplier sucks at the invoices. Since she puts random amounts down etc.. for customs. Annoying, now i gotta make up invoices and email these guys. Not sure what other alternatives i got beyond direct bank transfer, and you know after a certain amount. Your banks BSA department is going to start to annoy you with questions too.

I would suggest you stop using WU for your best interest... WU is getting crazy stupid

What other options are there? Save paying 4% more?

What about MoneyGram?

Wire transfer ( flat $25 ), you can gift with paypal that way you only pay like 1% if you use pp balance but they are no chargebacks with that...

All these processors are really getting out of control. same with prepaid debit cards. blocking cards for no reason.

People keep abusing the cards so blocks constantly keep coming up.

And it's the gamblers who are causing all this crazyness... anyway, i just used BOA for international transfer $45 ouch. but better than paying 100$ fee for aliexpress

Just had this happen to me. They asked why I sent $16K in the month of March. I told them I was buying from a supplier to resell. At that point, they wanted, business licence, corporation paperwork, bank statements that had to have withdrawals that corresponded to the days I sent the transfers, ID, and invoices of what I was buying. They asked me have I met the people, which I haven't, but I've been successfully ordering from them since last year. I didn't want to be a lie cause it would be just my luck they asked for passport stamps.

I asked my vendor for invoices as you know coming from China, that but a very low amount as the value on the Proforma Invoice for customs. Then western union told me that the invoices weren't good enough. That they didn't look like real invoices. They also said that I needed to scan in the invoices, so they couldn't just be attached from the email the vendor sends me. Though my vendor invoices aren't set up like traditional invoices I have no control of that. I asked vendor again to send invoices through mail, she mailed and they almost look the exact same. I'm still blocked, no one has called me back, and I'm having to use money gram. I hate this cause they aren't 24 hours, so it puts the shipments off a whole day because I have to email her an order, wait all night for a response since they are in China, then wait till the morning to do the money gram, then wait again till the night for her to confirm that everything is ok and they received the money. Vendors always give a discount when you pay that way instead of bank transfers and credit cards. Most won't deal with paypal at all. My vendor also does it where you always send to different people. And when its over $3500, you have to show license, and social security card or passport and give them your occupation.

I haven't used WU in years or imported anything. But I had them call me 5 or 6 years ago with the same deal. Wanting to ask about all the money I was sending at the time. I just hung up and stop using it. The last time I tried to send money $2k or something it got rejected and sent back to me.

After that I used several different variations of name and different addresses of family members. Phone numbers were usually how they brought up the accounts. When the payments in the US were under $1,000 you didn't need to show ID. So I would drive around to different WU places I and send $950 multiple times. I had like 5 different combos of Phone/Addy/Names I would use. That is what got me around that.

Unfortunately at the time I had to pay more in fees because I was sending multiple smaller payments. But it got me around the hassle of dealing with them.

My biggest concern was just if the payment got rejected I could claim it back. Through a variation of my name or a family member.