western union car scam !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

urbansanc

hi there, PLEASE CAN YOU HELP ME,

i have been scammed out of £2500, by western union,

i had been looking for a car for a few months, and i found one on auto trader i contacted the seller by email and a few days later i got a reply,

the seller told me they were based in germany and the car was in plymouth,
the seller then told me they had flown to england just a few days before so sell the car but the buyer didnt turn up,

so before he would fly out this time he wanted assurance that i had the money to pay for the car,
he told me to use WESTERN UNION,
he didnt want me to transfer the money to him,
but to get me to get a friend to transfer the money to me, the buyer was not connected to the movement of money in anyway,

he then asked for me to send a copy of the reciept to him by email, so he could check the amount,

WESTERN UNION is ment to have strick protocols when picking up large amounts of cash,

the seller contacted me saying that they were checking the details and then they will book a flight over, and send me details of there flight,

i kept on checking the western union site, but i was assured that only i could access my money.

i hadnt had any replied of the seller for a day or so, so i went to get my money back from the shop i had transfered it.
i was then SHOCKED when he told me the money had been collected 3 hours before,

i said how is that possible ?????????????????????????????????
he told me that some WESTERN UNION AGENTS might run a scam and get paid commission by the criminal to cash the transfer, or they have used fake ID which hasnt been checked out correctly.

i then had to fill in forms about the transaction and fax them in,

i am waiting for WESTERN UNION to give me the details of the person who has picked it up and how they managed to pick my money up,

i dont know if i will get my money back !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i have told the police about what has gone on and im waiting to see if there is anything they can do.

NEVER EVER EVER SEND MONEY BY WESTERN UNION, IT IS NOT SAFE !!!!!!!!!!! THE AGENTS DO NOT FOLLOW ANY RULES ON ID CHECKING,

WESTERN UNION WOULDNT GIVE ME ANY HELP OR ADVICE ON HOW I CAN GET MY MONEY BACK,

please if you have gone through a similar scam please contact me,
i thought my money was safe cause i had sent it to myself, but western union is just a criminals dream.

dacouch

Unfortunately you have been caught by a very common scam, if you search the forums you will find lost of other people who have fallen for this or similar scams.

It is very unlikely you will get your money back...sorry

elaina79

I had something similar a few years ago when I sold my car. This was a scam where I was sent a cheque which I paid in and cashed then was asked to take my fee for the car and send the rest back via western union.
The car would then be collected.

Luckily my hubby checked the bank in the early hours the morning after we sent the money to find the cheque had bounced. We managed to get to western union before the scammers took the money and withdrew it back out.

It is very common and I will never use western union again.

maninthestreet

You were scammed by the 'seller' (who probably had no car to sell), not by WU. The MTCN is all anyone needs to pick up money sent by WU, you cannot rely on the WU agent checking that the person picking up the money is the person named as the recipient of the money transfer.

helibod

I fell for the same thing, but when I emailed a copy of the receipt I changed my name on there for my shortened name (that's what I had been using during all the email correspondence). Unfortunately I changed the name rather than deleting the MTCN number...I now know that's the important bit of info they need but I was thinking it was the name of the receiver.

So now I'm trying to get hold of Western Union's fraud line to get a copy of the form they filled in to see what name they used, I think that's my only hope.

Urbansanc, have you any luck in persuing this?