Report Him!!! You have all his info right? How long will it take to call his local police if the address is legit and report him? 15 min.. You might save someone else 400 bones... Anyone telling you dont waste you time reporting this is the same sort of people who would scam you if they had the chance/heart...IMO Great catch by the way!!! I busted a scammer in dp, they banned him but let him back. Dp must be like western union??? The point is i did my part, what dp or in your case the police do with it is there problem..... DONT USE Western Union FOR ANYTHING!!!!!!! I'm surprised they are actually still in business because they are so associated with scams... and I cant remember the last time i needed to send a telegraph by the equivalent to horseback. If they are not smart/legit enough to get a paypal account then they "probably" cant be trusted. I have several, my dog even has one... They are not that hard to get. Sounds like you got a good head on your shoulders. Keep it up and im sure you'll go far!
what makes western union ideal for scammers? I don't quite get how they wouldn't have some sort of security or clearance in payments. My advice would be to contact him telling him to refund your money or else you'll report him and publish his info. Create a blog put your story on it and post his info - but don't promote it, then send him the url so he knows you're serious about it. At no point should you ever actually promote the site (add robot tags "nofollow,noindex"). Just scare the guy assuming its his real info.
Well it's a combo of things I think... They say that your not suppose to use WU for business transactions. So if you buy something and they dont send it to you. WU will say you used them for an illegal business deal and theres nothing they can do. So when someone on the net tells you they only take WU. You tell them, after your done swearing..lol They can not be used for this and he/she should accept some form of payment that can be. ie.. paypal etc. They (WU) really are dumb if you ask me. All they had to do was setup some form of online payment thingy and they would probably have it on lock by now. They already had the sending money thing on lock before the web so why not just adjust your business for the changing times? It's beyond me... The scammers use them for several reasons. They dont have to register any private info to use them. To collect money, all you need to do is walk into WU with your ID and pickup the cash. Then if something goes bad with the transaction they say your weren't suppose to use them for this, so they dont investigate. So you could totally sit in a net cafe and scam people. Then walk next door to WU and pick up your cash. That simple. Now if you did that in the US/UK it might catch up with you fairly quickly. But in other countries like Nigeria they don't have the resources to criminally investigate this sort of thing. Nothing against Nigeria, they just seem to be one of the biggest hotspots for these crimes... Go look at ebolamonkeyman.com for more info. Kinda funny how he toys with these scammers... I have been forwarding him scam emails for years... I actually know someone who sent one of these guys $5000.00 so the guy would send him a million... Rule of thumb: If it sounds to good to be true it usually is... Again, good catch mad-d702!!!! Dont worry about the $30 service fee you lost. I'm sending it to you Western Union... jk...lol
Haha - I love this post The only time I would use western union, was in two circumstances: 1. To send money to family (or very close friends.) 2. To pay for something I have already received. Otherwise, you're just asking to be scammed.