Arthur D.

Western Union (WU)has some real problems in making money transfers safe and efficient. I had an emergency situation because my grandmother had passed away at 99 years young, and I needed to travel from California to Georgia to help with burial and funeral preparations.

So since I had just paid my mortgage, I didn't have the kind of money needed for a flight with my family to Georgia. My aunt attempted to send me money, and even though it was over $2,000, that is no excuse for poor customer service in an emergency situation. The first problem was that most pickup places did not have that amount of money on hand. But this makes no sense if you're a business knowing that people can send all kinds of amounts of money to be picked up. So any business working with WU should be able to handle most reasonable amounts. The second problem I ran into was that after I first attempted to pick up the funds, my CA ID was not good enough. All of a sudden another requirement popped on the screen requesting my social security card?

Normally, that would not have been a problem, but this time I had long ago misplaced my social security card. That's purely my fault, but before I went to pick up funds a second time, WU should have informed me that an additional ID requirement was needed. A Check into Cash personnel called a supervisor and opened up the way for me to use my passport in connection with my social security number and a picture of my social I had made just in case I misplaced the original. But of course, the passport had recently expired, so I could not use it. So the Check into Cash supervisor was good enough to allow the photo of my social security card to be used with my CA ID.

But of course another problem arose because once again, a "hold" was put on the transfer after the first failed attempt to pick up the money. After the second try, I figured that it is a standard procedure with WU that if the first attempt to pick up he cash fails, an automatic "hold" is placed on the transfer. What does this mean? It means more insane and absolutely ridiculous delays in getting emergency funds because now the sender is required to call from the phone number that was put on the sending form (nowhere else!), so that a WU representative can call the sender and "verify" that he or she sent the money to you. In this situation, the sender was sick and had to check out of the hospital to send the money, and then had to deal with all kinds of problems with WU making it too difficult to receive needed funds.

Two representatives were supposed to call the sender, but when I called her I was told that no call came in. So I called WU again and spoke with "Ivan" about 5:41pm. He said he would call, but after an hour or more, still no call was made. I am totally disgusted with the complete and utter incompetence of the transfer of larger amounts via WU. What makes this so absurd is the fact that this cannot be the first time that WU has ever dealt with people trying to send larger amounts. So there can be no excuse for this level of incompetence and asinine customer service.

The funeral is approaching and I'm still stuck in CA and it looks like I might miss my own grandmother's funeral. This is sickening and disgusting, and I am convinced to never ever again use Western Union for any other money transfers. I will do all I can to make sure Western Union never again causes this level of pain and problems for people in emergency situations. I will complain all over social media and make sure WU pays for my pain and emotional distress because people will stop using the service.

So I do not recommend using WU for sending a dime or a dollar, and while I understand they need to guard against possible fraud, there is no excuse for putting people through too many hoops just to get needed funds. Go with another service like MoneyGram or something else. My grandmother passed away on December 4th. The first attempt to send money was on December 5th. It is now December 7th and I STILL do not have a dime of that money sent due to an unnecessary and unreasonable technicality and disastrous Western Union procedure. This is absolutely sickening. Stay away from Western Union!