Tag: western union

November 3, 2018

Time-Wasters Update

An email from Western Union tells me they have a money transfer waiting for me and I just need to tell them my full name, contact address, telephone number, country, passport number etc. to receive that money. This is a standard phishing scam – just after my personal details which can be sold to other scammers. The message is from Mr. Goodluck James. The only good luck is for the scammers if anyone replies.

Travis Stork claims that his wife lost over 50 pounds and she credits it to one fat flushing food exactly one hour before bed. You can lose 14 pounds in 10 days just by adding this to your diet – one hour before bedtime. No. The only thing you would accomplish is furnishing this scammer with your money. Magic diets with no effort NEVER work, especially ones where you can apparently eat anything else you want.

Another message from Yahoo saying my account will be closed if I do not verify my account immediately. Just the usual phishing message – in this case from lateliertana @yahoo.fr which is a Yahoo France personal email address, not from Yahoo itself.

Steve warns that we should never exercise more than 90 minutes per week. That would make life difficult for marathon runners, tennis players and a lot more people but then Steve is presumably a moron for sending out such drivel.

An email that shows lots of other people’s email addresses that have also received the message and only contains a link but no attempt to describe what it is for. The email is from stitchedup22 so at least this scammer has a sense of humour.

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January 19, 2018

Western Union to Repay Scammed Money

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Postal Inspection Service have been investigating Western Union who are a wire transfer company.

Western Union is often used by fraudsters as payments through Western Union cannot generally be tracked.

Western Union has admitted to aiding and abetting wire fraud and failure to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering programme and agreed to pay $586 million. That money is now being used by DOJ to give refunds to people who were tricked into using Western Union to pay scammers.

Victims of fraud who paid money to scammers via a Western Union wire transfer between 2004 and 2017 can apply for a refund .

This was thought to only apply to U.S. citizens but the US Department of Justice has recently confirmed that victims of fraud who live anywhere in the world – including the UK – can apply for a refund if they lost money transferred via Western Union between 1 January 2004 and 19 January 2017. There is a limited refund pot and there are thought to be 100,000s of victims, so they may not get all of their lost money back.

Fraudsters use a variety of methods to trick people into wiring them money – romance scams, friend in distress, fake online purchases etc.

The refund scheme covers any form of wire transfer fraud which involved making a payment via Western Union, so if you sent money to someone who wasn’t who they said they were, or you didn’t get what you were promised in return for a transfer you made, you can apply for a refund.

How To Apply For a Refund

You can apply online at www.westernunionremission.com/ or by post – the deadline is 12 February 2018.

To apply online, fill in the Western Union remission claim form. You’ll be asked for contact details, details of the payment you made to a fraudster, whether you’ve previously managed to recover some of your lost money and if so, how much. If you’ve already had some money back, you can only claim for the amount you haven’t recouped.

The form asks for a social security number – for people no in the U.S.A. put that you don’t have one as you are not a U.S. citizen.

If you have receipts or other supporting documentation such as a police report, then upload copies of these to support your claim. You can still apply if you don’t have any documentation.

Make sure you apply through the official site and don’t respond to emails from people claiming they can get your money back – these are almost certainly fraudsters. You do not have to pay anything to get your money back and you will not be called and asked for your bank account or credit card number as part of the claims process.

The process may take a year or more because of the number of claims that will have to be dealt with. The Department of Justice has already identified 500,000 potential victims in the US and many more are expected to apply from overseas.

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January 3, 2018

Stay Safe on Western Union

Western Union is a money transfer system. It is very much favoured by online fraudsters as once you have made a payment in Western Union the money is untraceable and no way can you get it back.

Western Union recognise this problem but there’s little they can do as the whole process is designed to allow for easy money transfer as if paying cash. Untraceable.

Western Union do publish guidance on how to avoid scams and stay safe.

They publish a list of Money Transfer Never-Evers as they call them.

These are:-

Never send money to people you haven’t met in person.
Never send money to pay for taxes or fees on lottery or prize winnings.
Never use a test question as an additional security measure to protect your transaction.
Never provide your banking information to people or businesses you don’t know.
Never send money in advance to obtain a loan or credit card.
Never send money for an emergency situation without verifying that it’s a real emergency.
Never send funds from a cheque in your account until it officially clears—which can take weeks.
Never send a money transfer to an individual for online purchases.

If you follow those rules then you will be a lot safer using money transactions with Western Union.

There are countless other money transfer businesses of course including TransferWise, Currencies Direct, OFX and Moneygram.

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