Bitcoin Forum

Hi, I'm paying someone through WU (paying through an agent), and all he provided me was his name and country. Can I send the money successfully? Sorry I'm completely new to WU.

Also, what's the fee in using WU? And do they require an ID?

why dont you ask that someone who works for WU.
like, in a local WU store.

also, google might help.

If that's all you have on the person this transaction probably isn't that safe. I'd suggest dealing through an escrow.

thanks for the reply. Really helpful.

What could possibly go wrong? :D

Happy to help.

The real reason you should ask WU themselves is that if something goes wrong, you're gonna file a complaint "but the forumz said so!!111eleven^^"?

I dont understand why people do not go to the people that MUST NEED TO KNOW these things but instead rely on the half-wisdom of others.

Now that's the answer I was looking for, very detailed. Thanks nckfor. PMing you now as I have a few more questions.

When you send the payment they give you an MTCN code. The one receiving can only pick up the $$$ with the MTCN code. You can also put a secret question but I have never done that.

That's weird then because every time I've sent Western Union the agent has stressed to not lose the MTCN code because it's the only way to pick up the money.

Also, found this:

https://thewesternunion.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13

at your service. though I don't work for WU, I work for a WU affiliate.


Pay special heed to his warning. Make damn good and sure you know who you're sending to, WU is a bastion for unscrupulous activity.

I would like to add that for sends above three grand you have to present your ID. Also, I'm pretty sure that this wasn't previously the case, but all receives (at least in the U.S.) now require an ID. At least in my location, my auditor freaks out if I do a receive without getting a copy of ID.

Also, be aware individual locations are at liberty turn down anybody, or require an mtcn. I know it sounds weird that we can turn down anybody, but scammers proliferate.


This is misleading. I rarely use an MTCN to look up a users transaction. I do verify it though if they wrote it down (some people don't fill out a form). They go by ID now.

addendum so i don't completely look like an asshole:


after two dozen or so transactions across the whole world, WU simply denied processing my payments one day. also denied paying out money wired to me.
no explanation.


hotline and the "AML team" were less than helpful.

fuck'em, use bitcoin instead.

For future reference, many countries like Russia you only need the name. The transfer is available no matter where they are in Russia. They simply present MTCN and ID and get paid.

I know this from wiring money to wm-center.com and wondered why the WU agent didn't ask me for the city. As for the secret question that's basically vanished, everybody has to present ID now in almost every country. Often, you don't have to use western union. There are a ton of alternatives like contact-sys, migom, ria, marco polo and anelik. All of these Eastern European, Russian and UK transfer services have offices in whatever country you live in to send money. Use them if WU gives you bullshit trouble for picking up too many transfers or sending too much.

Regarding that, we shouldn't.

We had a girl start coming in and picking up like four or five receives a day from different parts of the country. They were only small receives from 50-150 bucks a pop, but we still thought it was suspicious.

We consulted the auditor-man about it and he arrived at the same conclusion as us. It seems suspicious but we couldn't really think of any scenario where receiving lots of small amounts could be used to (effectively) launder money or take drug profits (considering they were coming from different places). So we continue to do them for her.

My working theory would be that she's a cam whore but half of her receives come from her mom, so she's probably just someone from a money having family. But yea as long as you aren't receiving thousands at a time you're ok on that...



EDIT: I wanted to come back here and admit that I was wrong.

I went to work and found out for damn sure.

Under 1000 bucks and you CAN receive without an ID with only a test question.