Just how many WU outlets are there.

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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:43 pm

I had to be in London on business during the last couple of months, I could not help noticing the proliferation of WU outlets in the Hounslow/Slough areas.
Having worked in the area for over thirty years before retiring I am sure there were nothing like as many as little as 6 years ago! Now nearly every newsagent/internet cafe/Greasy spoon/Estate agents/etc. are sporting WU signage, to a lesser extent there is Moneygram as well. I counted six outlets in just one small shopping parade.

Question is, could some of them be part of the Lads network?
It would not be too hard for a Lad´s receiver who has a newspaper shop to apply for an agency.

On the other hand maybe I am getting paranoid!!!!

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 720

Same for the East End of London

Large numbers of Migrants in the area,sending money home maybe

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:32 am

Beleive it or not, but i just logged onto one of my email accts
and at the top was an advert for WU, saying

"Transfer Money to Friends & Family 310,000 Agent Locations Worldwide"

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:50 am

There are thousands just in Greater London, you are right that every shop seems to be an agent these days. Just 5 years ago, WU agents were usually just set up in cheque cashing shops or similar, or even in dedicated offices.
Even my local off licence is now a WU agent on the side.

It depends on the country though, just to give you an idea, there are only 3 agents in Johannesburg.

There's not really a great deal of point in a lad having a UK WU agent "onside". But I hear they are sometimes friendly (By friendly, read "bribing") with their local WU agents in Africa, usually to avoid producing ID.

Doodle Bug wrote:

Same for the East End of London.... Large numbers of Migrants in the area,sending money home maybe

I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm out west, and most agents seem to cater to the large number of Polish / other Eastern Euro immigrants in the area who need to send money home.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 1:34 pm

It's much the same here in the US, especially in the Southwest. Many of my co-workers sent money back to their homelands (usually Mexico) from every paycheck.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:54 am

I could swear there were 310,000 WU offices in Abidjan alone...

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:54 pm

same here as Mugatu - in my neighbourhood there are two very dodgy newsagents now offering WU services.

It's perfect for baiting though - lad asks me to send WU, I go to my local WU office and find that it's a run-down corner shop selling booze, fags and condoms. No way do I trust them to handle my business transaction, they can barely manage to give me the right change when I buy my cheap bottle of booze and top-shelf magazine. How about we do the deal through a bank transfer instead.

anyway, I'm sure some of these will turn out to be shady. I'm not sure what kind of vetting new WU agents go through, but there are surely numerous possibilities of misuse.

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