Western Union Horror Story

The customer service part of this story is bad enough, but my experience with Western Union actually scared me -- and that's not easy to do.

I wanted to send $60 as a booking fee to an individual in Buenos Aires, where we are headed in a few weeks. She asked me to use the Money In Minutes feature on www.westerunion.com. Seemed innocuous, so I plunged in.

You have to identify from what state and to what country you are sending money. Fill in personal information, including date of birth, choose a particularly strong password, choose a security question and match the captcha. (I had to come up with yet-another new password because Western Union has a different requirement than every other vendor: "Passwords must be 7 to 16 characters long and include at least one capital letter, one lower case letter, and one number.") I filled out the form, provided my debit card information (only Visa and Master Charge; does American Express know something we don't about Western Union?) and was told to call a toll-free number to complete the transaction.  Remember that all I want to do is send $60. So far, Western Union had already exceeded everything that an average e-commerce vendor requires (credit card + security numbers) or that a bank requires (strong password and a security question).

Once I got an agent, she began what I can only call an interrogation process.

*She confirmed the information I had already entered manually (leading one to wonder what the point of doing an online form was).

*She asked me the last four digits of my Social Security number. I hadn't provided that number online so she must have looked it up. Is that legal? If so, who is providing my SS# online so freely?

*She asked the security question which I had provided online.

*Then she told me that she needed to ask me four additional questions, which she was clearly asking as the questions were composed on her computer in real time. The first question was "If you had a car loan in 2003, please identify the provider of that loan from the following list of four companies" and then proceeded to name four companies and gave me the option of saying "None of the above" as the fifth choice.

I didn't recognize any of the four companies and don't remember having a car loan in 2003. (It's my normal practice to either buy cars or lease them, not to borrow money to buy them. I might have been the cosigner on someone else's car, but I don't remember.) So I told the lady that I could not honestly answer the question she was asking, that I did not know the answer to the question. And I asked her what I should do. She told me was not allowed to give me guidance and only allowed the ask the question and record my answer and could not move on to the next question unless I answered the first one.

I then entered an Orwellian nightmare, where it was not possible to move forward or backward and my only option, if I wanted to remain an honest and upstanding citizen would have been to cancel the transaction -- after 15 minutes of trying to move "Money In Minutes". She eventually transferred me to a "supervisor", but he said exactly the same words as the first lady. (Think they might have been working off a script?) So I answered "None of the above/Does not apply". I had to answer the next question the same way, because it was about a mortgage in 2003 (we switched mortgages on my last house three times and I didn't recognize which of the vendors they listed as the correct one). I answered the last two questions, whereupon the "supervisor" told me that they could not complete the transaction. I hung up in disgust and was late to my next appointment.

This is bad enough as a customer service experience. How the heck does Western Union do any business if they treat their customers with this level of hostility and rigidity? But I keep wondering: How much does this company know about me now? How do they know in real time that I had car loans and mortgages five years ago and know enough to try to trap me into giving them the wrong answer? (I looked up their privacy policy after this experience and, guess what: "We may disclose Information about current and former consumers and customers to the following types of third parties:" everybody including financial service companies, retailers, and governments. So now, even though we did not do business, Western Union has the right to share the information it did get from me with other vendors at its will.)

My conclusion: Don't ever do business with Western Union. This company has the worst privacy and consumer service policies I have ever encountered. It needs to be put out of business. And I am fearful that a company that is this incompetent knows anything about me and has any right whatsoever to do anything with that information, much less do whatever it wants to do.

Comments

[Jonathan Morgan]

Thanks for the heads up. Truly frightening the privacy issues with these folks.

[Zeshan]

Thanks for informing. I am scared. I was just going to provide my SS# on there website but then it just didnt seem right and i looked up on google. thats when i found your article. Thank you so much for your help. But now i am also worried about my information which thay have in form of profile which i cannot delete no matter what.

[Kelley]

I wish i had read this before yesterday! I was blown away with my experience with WU. Trying to transfer only $40 from WA state to WA state, nothing major at all, or so i thought! After being transfered twice i finally got to someone who could take my payment, I assumed the transaction was complete. he did ask for my date of birth which i thought was strange, but other then that usualy credit card #/expriation date and mailing address.. after he was done getting that information he said he needed to transfer me to the 'validation' dept. A man then asks me for the last 4 of my social so he can verify it. I asked, what are they verifying the # against because i know the credit card companies dont have capability to verify social #'s linked to card. He said they are not allowed to reveal the source in which they were going to cross check my social, but he said its similar to a credit check! After debating back and forth and arguing i went ahead with the process. He asked who my car loan from 3 years ago was with, which company i formally worked for and what the last 4 #'s of my cell phone # are! He listed 4 choices for each question and i was able to verify the correct answers. The transaction went through but i was irrate. He said its policy to make sure i am the card holder. I said, if i buy something online from a store then dont need to do all that to verify i am the card holder. Why not just ask for the CVV code? (THey never did). It was very rediculous and i understand the importance of stopping fraud but i am affraid by obtainign so much personal information from customers all they are doing is giving customers a highter risk of having identity theft occur. Who knows what county they are in (it was obviously not usa) and now they have ALL my personal info! I would NEVEr recomend that serivce!

[Ministerfunny]

Influence Green,usual letter it decide art day together ever roll living painting institute switch ever threaten application while open contract effective issue compare labour explain place reduction explain important principle follow whatever to vehicle further fall guest cause channel ahead specific effectively urban rate sector beat useful master year fight only access intend mine right anything difficulty box tradition method considerable single prospect weak shot animal weather go construction yourself library location function town incident watch author result bank influence young earn mean future neck please