Western Union money transfer

[retiredbanker]

I'll repeat, in part, comments posted on this thread some time ago. Bear in mind I am not in any way financially connected to WU other than as a user.

I've used WU for years without issues and have complete confidence in their ability and honesty in completing my transactions. The fee is just a cost of living here.

I send money to myself from my US bank for cash pickup or to family here who have bank accounts. My funds are available immediately and transfers to bank accounts take 1 business day.

Initially, when first using WU here there were occasional minor issues but none for years since.

I prefer using them and not giving access to my financial data to other entities just to save a few bucks.

 

[Caribbean Cool]

Have you tried disabling the extension in Chrome except when you want to make a WU transfer? Or is there a problem if you do that?

P.S. I do not use the extension...direct to website on my computer

 

[MercyRego]

Try this. Clear your cache on your computer. Sign in again using a different email address. That changed me from being totally restricted to being accepted in full. Let us know what happens.

I have cleaned the cache and cookies. It didn't work. I ended opening a new account with MONEY GRAM. A few minutes after that, I received a txt msg from my bank asking if the transfer was valid. Then, finally, I received the money. It took two hours, more or less, to complete something that WU does instantly.
I'll try WU in a few weeks again. I'll keep you posted.
Thank you, ALL!

 

[LongtimeExpat]

I have cleaned the cache and cookies. It didn't work. I ended opening a new account with MONEY GRAM. A few minutes after that, I received a txt msg from my bank asking if the transfer was valid. Then, finally, I received the money. It took two hours, more or less, to complete something that WU does instantly.
I'll try WU in a few weeks again. I'll keep you posted.
Thank you, ALL!

I would expect that things will go well for you with Moneygram after that first transfer. I use them a lot to transfer directly to my Mercado Pago account, and the money usually arrives in the account in 5-15 minutes. I also use Western Union. I've been using both for years. They both work well most of the time, but I've had problems at times with both of them. It's good to have more than one option, just in case.

 

[pmacay]

Have you tried disabling the extension in Chrome except when you want to make a WU transfer? Or is there a problem if you do that?

I didn't know you could do that, I'll ask AI how to do it! Thanks for the suggestion! I'm just worried I'll turn it off and not be able to turn it back on, the discounts code have saved me approx $840 USA in transfer fees over the last 2 years!

 

[pmacay]

I would expect that things will go well for you with Moneygram after that first transfer. I use them a lot to transfer directly to my Mercado Pago account, and the money usually arrives in the account in 5-15 minutes. I also use Western Union. I've been using both for years. They both work well most of the time, but I've had problems at times with both of them. It's good to have more than one option, just in case.

That's exactly why I tried WISE and TapTapSend, it's good to have a backup way to transfer funds. I also did a direct wire transfer of USA $$$ from CitiBank in the USA to my Santander USA $$$ account, but factoring in the fees, WU is a better deal. Again, it's nice to have backup options! Never tried Moneygram, will try that next month when I need to send more funds! Thanks!

 

[Filipo]

... FYI, I also tried creating an account on (https://www.taptapsend.com/) that Filipo mentioned, but they suspended my account on the first transfer attempt, and after chatting with them and giving them all my documents proving it's me, and my bank accounts, they said they'd get back to me soon, it's been over a week and I've sent them a follow-up email, but no reply.

The exact same thing happened to me – my account was suspended right after my first transfer attempt.

In my case, I managed to get it resolved through their support chat. They told me the automated flag was triggered because I used a virtual mobile phone number. Once they cleared that up, they unblocked me.

Even after that, I ran into a few more roadblocks specifically with transfers to Argentina, which required contacting support a few more times. Fortunately, it finally went through again today.

I'm hoping their fraud detection system eventually adapts to my transfer patterns so the whole process becomes a bit more fluid moving forward.

One good thing worth mentioning: I used Google Pay, and my account was only charged for the successful transfers. Unlike other services where the money gets tied up for days after a failed attempt, here it wasn't deducted at all when it blocked.

 

[Filipo]

Balanz

They are a broker in Argentina. You can transfer to their account by wire, they credit your account in "dolares cable" and then you can do an exchange with CCL rate which is usually a few percent higher than MEP. The commission is around 1.2%. then you just transfer it to your bank account or mercado pago wallet or whatever pretty much instantaneously.

@SlowWalker Could you explain the process in more detail? I recently opened an account with Balanz, but my advisor told me:

En este caso la conversion de eur a usd cable la hace el banco emisor y luego es simplemente pasar de usd cable a mep o pesos via mercado.

So if I understand correctly, this would actually use the MEP rate, not CCL. If I want to use the true CCL mechanism, wouldn't I need Balanz to provide their international/US correspondent bank details so the funds credit directly as USD, allowing me to buy bonds in the US market and sell them for ARS?

 

[SlowWalker]

@SlowWalker Could you explain the process in more detail? I recently opened an account with Balanz, but my advisor told me:

So if I understand correctly, this would actually use the MEP rate, not CCL. If I want to use the true CCL mechanism, wouldn't I need Balanz to provide their international/US correspondent bank details so the funds credit directly as USD, allowing me to buy bonds in the US market and sell them for ARS?

I am not sure the process with Euros.
You may need to convert first from Euros to Dollars. If you need to do this, then determine if its still worth it, accounting for the additional step exchange required.

To determine if you get the MEP or CCL rate depends on whether you wire from abroad 1) directly to Balanz or 2) to a domestic account and then transfer, just as you would pesos by transferencia, to Balanz. If you do 1) then you will get CCL, if you do 2) you will end up getting MEP.

Ask your advisor for their details for Wire Transfer. I believe it is Citibank. You can also ask him if there are instruments that enable EUR to ARS conversion also by MEP/CCL, or if you need USD.
If you do need to exchange to USD first, I would suggest using Wise for that stage.

 

[Filipo]

Thank you @SlowWalker for the information. I will see how much I may get at the end, after two conversions.