Western Union Money Transfer 4+

Worth the hassle, once I got verified

The verification process was a little bit of a nightmare, but that is understandable given how much identity fraud and financial scams happen online these days.

Since being verified this app has made my life a whole lot easier. It takes multiple payments, including Klarna, Apple Pay and online bank transfer. I no longer have to make the trek to money agents and the online fees are much more reasonable, than in person, while all transfers are done in minutes.

Moreover, you get the occasional loyalty reward which was never the case with the money agents.

Worse experience with worse company

Used them for many years with small issues with almost every transaction - although i dont use them primarily. I use other companies.

Last transaction (i should not have used them) done yesterday - 1st hurdle was payment instruction, on the WU app, there is only the receiver’s name in the reference with WU account details. So, used that info and transferred money.
10 minute later received an email with “EB” reference for payment. So, called helpline and they said EB reference should be used. Told them multiple times, on the app i did not see no “EB” reference. Then got told i should have checked my email!! Really!!!

Called multiple times and every time was told a decision will be made in few hours and i will be notified if money will be sent or not. Being told WU supports millions of transactions each day so i should have used “EB” reference from my email …. Wellll why does WU not make app better by spending a few thousand £s and add EB reference on app too. Complete idiots.

Money was confirmed after 12 hours .. bear in mind i needed this money urgently where i was sending!

Then further 6 hours later, money leaves WU account and reaches Receiver’s bank. So, a total of 18 hours.

Note: money is still not with the receiver as WU or Bank has further delayed the payment now.

So, do not use. I will be closing my account. There are many alternate options now.

This is a crap company with crap customer service.

Developer Response ,

We are sorry to know about your experience. If you still need assistance, please communicate with us and provide more details through the Contact Us section at westernunion.com Our representatives will be happy to review your case.

Do not use this App

I thought I was the only one having issues, but it seems that Western Union has no Auditing on their cancelled transactions.

I've been sending money to my parents for years via Western Union, however I will not be using them at all, and this will be escalated one way or another.

Let me explain how their process works:

1. You enter the details of the person that you are sending the money to, destination country and the amount.

2. Once you submit the form, Western Union makes a requests from the bank for that sum of money.

3. The bank will send the sum of money to Western Union

4. Western Union will now hold that money till it is collected.

5. If the details of the sender is incorrect, the payment instruction will be in a pending state.

6. If the cancel the instruction, it will show as cancelled on the application, and will be removed from the system at their system. DON'T CANCEL via the app. CALL IN AND REQUEST A REFUND.

Western Union has denied that they have taken that money from account even though I sent screen shots from my bank statement with the transactions taken from my account.

I complained via my bank which disputed the transaction, but as expected they denied all knowledge of it.

I have been working in I.T. for many years and this process is clearly fraudulent. I will not take them to court as it would be too expensive for me to do (what they are counting on). I will get this escalated in another way.