Good News ... I Hope.

First, I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this in. Mods: feel free to move elsewhere if you like. For anyone who hasn't seen the introductory post I posted ages ago, I'm a Western Union agent. Insert usual disclaimer about how the views of a lowly agent do not necessarily reflect those of Western Union as a whole here.

So, this gentleman comes in and wants a quote to send money to Senegal. Before I even start asking him the usual KYC questions I know he's unfamiliar with WU procedures; I mentally flag his transaction as potentially suspicious for the following reasons:

1. He wants a quote to send $300. I'm in the UK so he'll be paying in £s. It's not possible to send money to Senegal in USD via WU; only CFA can be sent to Senegal. Of course, if the receiver picks up from an agent which also offers currency exchange services then the receiver could ask the agent to pay out in USD instead of CFA, but since the agent will then charge their usual FX conversion fees and not all agents will offer FX services, this is not the same as sending in USD. I will come back to this point later.

2. He mentions that the money needs to go into the receiver's bank account. WU does offer a direct-to-bank service to certain countries, but Senegal is not one of those countries; only cash payouts are available to Senegal.

3. When I explained points 1 and 2 to him, he confessed he was not entirely sure which country the money was destined for; he knew it should go to Africa, but he was unsure as to exactly where in Africa.

4. For years, he has been a regular customer who comes in once or twice a week to buy a bottle or 2 of beer; up till now, he has never even bought so much as a phone top-up. To suddenly want to use WU after all this time is suspicious in itself.

I investigated with further KYC questions, trying to seem friendly and chatty rather than nosy and interrogative. It worked; he told me the money was to pay for the shipping fees on a bank card supposedly loaded with tens of thousands of pounds which was bequeathed to him by a recently-passed long-lost relative.

Forget about the implausibility of a gentleman so white he needs suncream to watch TV having Senegalese relatives. Forget about the razor-thin overlap between 'Relatives who are distant enough that you never even knew they existed' and 'Relatives who are close enough to leave you lots of money in their will'. The only words I needed to hear for alarm bells to ring were "Shipping fees." Guys, If you ever see or hear "Shipping fees" in any kind of proximity to "Western Union", run like the wind.

So I asked him, "How on earth does is cost $300 to post a credit card, even from Senegal?"

He said, "Well, they said that for security reasons they can't just use the normal postal system; they have to ship with DHL who are expensive but secure."

So I pulled up DHL's website and got a quote for a vastly overestimated weight (0.5kg). It came to £50. I showed him this, then explained how the 'Advance Fee Fraud' and 'Car Buying Scam' (this particular scam seemed to be mostly the former, with a little of the latter sprinkled in for flavour) work. I told him I was 99% certain that he was being pulled in to a scam.

He said, "Well, it's only a few hundred quid. I've been emailing these people for over a year now; I thought these scammers gave up if they thought their mark would never pay up. Surely it's not worth it for them to do a year's work for just a few hundred; I would've thought they would've given up after a few months without me paying them anything."

I explained that the $300 would NOT be the end of it. This time they want shipping fees; once the mark has bitten, they'll want taxes, lawyers' fees, politicians' bribes, and on and on and on till they've sucked you dry. The scammer knows that the Sunk Cost Fallacy and the mark's belief that their jackpot is just one more small payment away will keep the money flowing, and that money will only ever flow in one direction.

In the end, he said he didn't have the receiver's details on him anyway. Those were in the email; he'd meant to bring this email up on his phone but tech gremlins thwarted this plan. He said he would come back tomorrow once he'd exorcised said gremlins (or, failing that, printed the email out from his laptop). I said I would be happy to look at the email for him, and was preparing to explain why everything about it smelt fishy. I even chided myself for forgetting to ask him why the scammers didn't just pay the shipping fees using the credit card and planned to ask him tomorrow, though I'm sure the scammers have a pat answer for what must be a ubiquitous question.

I haven't seen this customer again, and it's been about a month now. I hope he wised up and ceased all contact with the scammers and has just found a cheaper/closer shop to buy his beer from. I fear, however, that he emailed the scammers passing my comments on and they replied assuring him that everything is above board and I'm just angling for a slice of his pie. If this is the case, they'll have told him to avoid me lest I steal his inheritance.

Alas, I never managed to get the sender's or receiver's details so was unable to put a block on any transactions he might try to make from another agent. I will be discussing how I might better have gathered details/made a report with my WU rep the next time I see him. I will also be asking how I might be able to deal with anyone who reports concerns that their relative is the victim of a scam. Data protection laws prevent me from answering questions like, "Has my dad been sending money to Nigeria?" But I don't know what I should do if someone says, "I think my dad is the victim of Advance Fee Fraud; can you put a block on him sending money through you?" I will report back what my rep says so anyone reading knows what they can do if they think their relative is being victimised.

I have a few questions about this incident which I would like feedback on that I might better spot potential scam victims in the future:

1. I was almost as surprised as the customer that the scammers had been communicating with him for a year even though this was the first time he'd even come close to sending them any money. Why didn't the scammers suspect a time-wasting scam-baiter after a few months and give up?

2. Why did the scammer want the money sent into a bank account? Even if WU offered a D2B service to Senegal, I would've thought the scammer would prefer an almost-untraceable cash pickup. Perhaps the scammer has a money mule to make the money's source/destination harder to trace. Can anyone think of any other possibilities?

3. In my experience, people wanting to send money in USD to a country which doesn't offer payout in USD, or to a country which offers it as an alternative option (for example, when sending to Turkey one can choose between Lira,
Euros and USD) is suspicious. Of course, such a transaction may be legitimate; likewise, a transaction not in USD may be suspicious. But I've noticed that scammers and money launderers seem to prefer to deal in USD.
Maybe this is because USD is a 'global' currency so it's easier to hop the money across a few different countries (thus making it harder to track) if it's all done in USD. Any other theories on this?

TL;DR: I (hope) I prevented someone from becoming the victim of a scam, almost literally at the last minute. Posting this for anyone who wants some good news for a change.

Thank you for sharing your story. I wish there were more WU agents willing to question people, especially here in the US. Hopefully, the gentleman heeded your advice, for sure.

I was reading through your questions, but I'm afraid by answering here we may educate scammers that may be lurking on our board.

Someone answered my questions by PM, so thank you to them.

I wish there were more WU agents willing to question people, especially here in the US.

As agents, we have to walk a tightrope. On the one hand, if we subject every single person who ever sends money to the third degree, we'll be accused of unwarranted intrusion into our customers' private lives. On the other hand, if we respect our customers' privacy by only interrogating customers who come in surrounded by a field of red flags, some illegitimate transactions will inevitably slip through the net.

I do my best to handle that balancing act but I've still fallen foul of both sides. On the side of 'Too much questioning', I once had a lady who would frequently send money to the same few people in Jamaica, mostly small amounts (less than £50). On one occasion, her nephew came in. It was blindingly obvious this was a third party transaction; his aunt was loitering around outside and I'd heard her giving him instructions on who and where to send the money to. I asked what all this palaver was about; turns out the lady was sending money to her ex-husband. He lives in the kind of small village where everybody knows each other; if the money was sent in her name word would soon get round and the receiver's new wife would NOT be impressed. The lady made it crystal clear she was not happy that she'd had to disclose this delicate aspect of her life to me.

On the other side, of insufficient investigation allowing suspect transactions to slip through the net, I had a man want to send a few hundred pounds to Pakistan. He was originally from Pakistan and the receiver shared his surname so it looked like the kind of 'Sending money to family back home' which WU is supposed to be used for. I only asked the questions I should have asked the first time when this same sender came back a few hours later wanting to send another few hundred to the same receiver.

"Why didn't you just send it all in one go?" I asked. "It's cheaper on the fees to do one big transaction rather than 2 or 3 small ones."

That's when I discovered he was the victim of the 'Grandparent Scam'. The scammer had initially asked for lawyer's fees; now the mark had bitten, the scammer wanted more money to bribe an officer. The victim had thought that since the money would be sent in his relative's name an impostor would be unable to claim it. Sadly, this existence of fake IDs and corrupt agents means this is not the case. I was able to minimise the victim's losses, but regret that my failure to ask the right questions at the beginning lead to him losing hundreds of pounds.

So, as you can see, us agents can't win. Most agents probably err on the side of respecting customers' privacy because money sent as part of a scam makes up a tiny tiny tiny proportion of the total volume of transactions processed by WU. I don't know what the overall statistics are, but personally I process around 120 transactions per month. I get maybe 3 customers a year who I suspect are scam victims, meaning they make up 0.2% of WU customers.

I will raise the USD issue with my rep though. All agents are given training on spotting scams, but the USD point I learnt from experience; it's not mentioned in training.

I spoke with my WU rep. The USD issue just received a pat answer about always being on the lookout for any red flags. As for what to do if you think a relative is the victim of fraud:

If you can, get details of any fraudulent transactions which have already been processed. You local agent will be able to submit a report using these details and blocks will be put in place where appropriate. If you can't, then ask your local agent (or look up online) for WU's customer service number and call them with your concerns.

Obviously, you should try talking to your relative and explaining that they are being scammed; the above steps are to be taken if your relative won't listen to your advice.