Western Union?

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Apr 2008 Posts: 12

After reading a few baits in the archive it seems the preferred method of payment is Western Union (and notice Shivers is never surprised by that!!)
Sooo...why is it preferable to scammers instead of other transfer methods? Is it highly dodgy? Enlighten me!!

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:31 pm

No need for ID. They have connections with Western Union workers. And, it is pretty much untraceable. Everything a lad likes.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7103 Location: Yes

Not to mention that lads often have compatriots working at Western Union who can help them smooth out any rough edges that a payment may have.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Apr 2008 Posts: 12

Really???? That's so bad!!!!!

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:39 pm

^^ You may have noticed by now that these scammers aren't exactly "the good guys". If they've got the right motivation (i.e. money) any morals are pretty much optional. The WU employees who help them are just scammers with jobs.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Apr 2008 Posts: 12

Are there no authorities that can close WU down? (if such a thing could be done??)
Sorry to sound like an ignorant fool, but, emmm, I am one Wink

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:57 pm

WU themselves are just providing a service, they aren't committing any crimes. If you decide to send money through western union, it's not their fault if that money is being sent to a scammer. Granted it'd be nice if they had more education about the risk of sending cash to people you meet on the internet, but I doubt they're too concerned as long as they're getting their money.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Apr 2008 Posts: 12

Yeah, and I'm guessing they probably get commission for every transaction so they wouldn't want to jeopardise that.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:57 pm

There are legitimate reasons to use Western Union. It is great for sending money to a real-life friend or relative in a pinch. I would hate to see it shut down because criminals use it. That would be a bit like surgically removing one's nose because they had a cold...

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:57 pm

Well, you have to realize that the majority of WU transactions are legit. It's the small minority that we talk about here.

How would you like it if you went to purchase something online and your credit card company called and said, "Excuse me, but we cannot let you buy that item online. There have been a number of cases of fraud so we are stopping every online transaction."?

It's all about personal responsibility. If the person chooses to send their money to the lads, that is their choice. We can try to educate them and do our best, but at the end of the day, they are the ones who opened their wallets.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:58 pm

If the test Q&A is used in a WU transaction, anyone with the question and answer can collect. Thus, no need to even have a WU connection. WU itself is not a dodgy company. Generally speaking, WU serves a legitimate purpose in helping people send/receive money that do not have access to banks. 99.9% of the WU transactions are probably legitimate.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:05 pm

Quote:

WU itself is not a dodgy company. Generally speaking, WU serves a legitimate purpose in helping people send/receive money that do not have access to banks. 99.9% of the WU transactions are probably legitimate.

Agreed. I recently had to send money (across borders) to a friend who had no access to a bank account in UK. I used WU. Although the amount was relatively small, about �200, I was phoned as part of their security and asked if I knew the person to whom I was sending the money. was it answer to an advert or email, etc etc.

The point I'm making is that they do seem to take security seriously and anyone who falls for a scam and then sends money through WU despite WU's safeguards has to be stupid.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:21 pm

falnsb wrote:

.... anyone who falls for a scam and then sends money through WU despite WU's safeguards has to be stupid.

I don't agree I'm afraid. The elderly, those that don't understand the internet properly, the mentally infirm, the young, the techno shy, the generally naive. They all fall for these scams, and they're not necessarily stupid.

If I was here to save just stupid people, I probably wouldn't bother. What we do here is to get scammers to waste their time to keep them away from genuine people. If all those people were terminally stupid, then as I say I'd go and do something else worthwhile.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:47 pm

^^ Well said.

B

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 1043

^concur.

Unfortunately, WU can't phone everyone who sends money. Even if they did, a lo of victims get taken in so far that they wouldn't believe it's a scam anyway.

Just because they don't know the intricacies of scams doesn't make them stupid. no body knows everything about everything, it's just a shame their void in knowledge could lose them serious pile of money.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:54 am

I can only speak based on my experience with WU, and I reiterate that anyone who went through the questioning that I went through with them, and still sent money to a scammer, has to be stupid. I don't give a damn whether others agree with me or not, I'm just expressing my view.

I accept that they may not 'phone everybody and that is perhaps the weak link.

On another point, most people who fall for standard 419 type scams are, if not stupid, then greedy or dishonest, if not all three.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 1043

What about the orphanage scams? How is wanting to adopt children infected with AIDs stupid, greedy, or dishonest?

WU is used by hundreds of thousands of people legitimately every week, they would probably spend more than they would make employing people to call every sender.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:14 am

I didn't say anything about orphanage scams, I said :

"most people who fall for standard 419 type scams are, if not stupid, then greedy or dishonest, if not all three."

I stand by that. If you want to disagree with me, which is fine, at least have the courtesy to do so in the right context.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 1043

Uhhuh, my bad on not seeing the one word, but the adoption scams still stand up as advanced fee fraud.
You are paying an advanced fee before you get to adopt the child. It's a standard 419 scam where the victim is just trying to help.

Off to uni.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

@falnsb, So if I came up to you in the street and gave you $1,000, and had your bank manager there to certify that it was real money, you would walk away? Is it really greedy to accept what someone is freely offering you?

Say you had $10M that you could not access and you were otherwise a pauper. How much would you be willing to pay someone to free up those funds? How much more would you pay if you also feared for your life?

Have you come across those Viagra spams that have a subject like "Hey Robert have you seen Hillary's nude pictures?". Most of us can see instantly that it is spam. But if your name is Robert, and you happen to know a Hillary, then maybe you are taken in enough to open the mail and click on the attachment. Similarly, most of the reasons the scammers give for having found your email address seem to be ridiculous, but for some people they make perfect sense.

The people who fall for the standard NOK, Orphan and Beneficiary scams can maybe be called naive but, in my opinion, not stupid. Many of the most committed victims are highly intelligent and well educated. In fact it may well be their belief that they are unscammable that makes them vulnerable to being scammed. There is a scam for everyone; nobody is immune, not even us.

As for dishonesty, try asking the scammers if their transaction is legal. All of them will tell you that it is perfectly legal and that nobody will get in any trouble.