nickposkitt
New Member
I recently discovered Ebay and was almost immediately and rather stupidly scammed by someone posing as the seller of a motorbike I was bidding on. I exchanged emails with him outside of my ebay account (which I didn't realise at the time) and ended up sending him £600 via Western Union - after which he dissappeared.
I didn't know much about Western Union money transfer before the transaction and assumed it to be a secure way of sending cash due to the Identification required to complete the transaction. After realising I had been fooled I went back to the western union agent to get the receivers details but they were unable to give me that info. This confidentiality clause was not mentioned when I made the transfer. Had it been I would have been more wary of the supposed sellers intentions.
In addition they advise you not to send money for goods and services through their service. There is a section in the sender form that states 'Is this transfer to complete payment for Goods or Services?' and a tick box for 'no' or 'yes' if you tick yes then you also need to complete disclaimer form FW1. The Western Union agent filled this form out and didn't ask the reason for the transfer and didn't tick ANY box. Again had I been made aware of this I would have realised the supposed sellers intentions.
It seems to me that these controls are there to protect the customer but the Agents are more interested in taking transfer fees (in this case £42) than making customers aware of the risks using their service and losing a customer.
Given that these guidelines were ignored, do I have a case against this Western Union agent??
Thanks
I didn't know much about Western Union money transfer before the transaction and assumed it to be a secure way of sending cash due to the Identification required to complete the transaction. After realising I had been fooled I went back to the western union agent to get the receivers details but they were unable to give me that info. This confidentiality clause was not mentioned when I made the transfer. Had it been I would have been more wary of the supposed sellers intentions.
In addition they advise you not to send money for goods and services through their service. There is a section in the sender form that states 'Is this transfer to complete payment for Goods or Services?' and a tick box for 'no' or 'yes' if you tick yes then you also need to complete disclaimer form FW1. The Western Union agent filled this form out and didn't ask the reason for the transfer and didn't tick ANY box. Again had I been made aware of this I would have realised the supposed sellers intentions.
It seems to me that these controls are there to protect the customer but the Agents are more interested in taking transfer fees (in this case £42) than making customers aware of the risks using their service and losing a customer.
Given that these guidelines were ignored, do I have a case against this Western Union agent??
Thanks
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