1:30 pm I went online to send my mother 350.00 to her bank account in Florida from my home in Indiana. I entered all my information, including my bank account. The cost to do this was 19.99 and would take 2-5 business days per their website. I completed the transaction at 1:45. When I hit submit something came up asking me to call to verify my information.

I checked my bank account. Here is where it is a little tricky; I have two amounts, the amount on my account that shows what I have BEFORE pending items are taken out and another where it shows AFTER my pending items are taken out. I haven't tried it, but I would safely say, the amount that shows AFTER my pending amounts are taken out is what my bank will allow me to use before charging me an overdraft fee. Well, Western Union was pending, but it was not taken out of this pending amount meaning that technically, the charge wasn't processed.

I thought this was a good sign. I called Western Union and spoke to someone who could not speak English, I hate to say this but when I'm sending money of this amount, I would like to understand what I'm being told. I verified all the information and she stated that I answered correctly (at least I thought) and was transferring me to a department for my money transfer. I got transferred to someone else who also I could not understand who said that he was not the person I was to speak to and then he transferred me to someone else!By now I am getting worried. The last person I could understand pretty well. He said my phone number and my husband's phone numbers could not be verified. What?? They are cell phones maybe not. So I ask What does this mean He said that I would have to go to a Western Union Store and provide them with my ID and submit a new transfer and that my refund was being processed. He gave me a coupon code to enter at the store to get 50% off my transaction.

At first I was thinking, wow they are really worried about my identity, that's nice. Until I checked my bank account, NOW the 369.99 was removed from my account and the amount of money I was able to use was deducted this amount. Thinking there was a mistake I went to the Western Union at a Kmart. The employee there was very nice and offered to call on my behalf. She came back and said since my number was not in the white pages (Cell phones??? White pages??) That they processed a refund but my bank was holding the funds and it would take 2-6 business days to return it. This is 6 business days before CHRISTMAS and I did not have the extra money to resend while waiting on my refund.

I go out and call them myself and speak to ANOTHER person whom I cannot understand. All I could get out of here was we are sorry that this is inconvencing you, it's your banks fault, we processed the payment and then when we could not verify your identity, we asked for them to refund your money

The only thing I can think at this time is... IF YOU CANNOT VERIFY MY IDENTITY WHY DID YOU PROCESS FUNDS?????? So I asked to speak to a manager. At this time, I was pretty hot so my husband took over the call. He got the exact song and dance from them but we did get a code for free money in minute's coupon.At this time I'm thinking ohkay.. if it is my banks fault then that's a nice gesture.

So my husband calls our bank first thing Monday morning (about. 20 hours after our transaction) and our bank says, Western Union has only processed a debit on your account, no refund. You need to ask them to give us a number to refund your money. So my husband says No western union says they have. My bank (I love them) did a 3 way call with western union and got a manager. The manager gave our bank the refund code and then tried to tell my husband that it would still take 2-6 business days to process. My bank then told them no, never mind, they would do a fraud chargeback and that my bank would return our funds to our account.

Silly us we still needed to get my mother the money and we had the code and we knew we wouldn't have the issue in the store so my husband goes to the store and gives them the code for the money in minutes and (yeah you guessed it) apparently our code was only good for so much, we still ended up paying 10.00 for the money in minutes transfer.

So that's my story about Western Union. If they try to give you crap, three way them and your bank. Someone will eventually have to crack and if your bank hears firsthand what Western Union is trying to do to you, you will get your money back.

I hope you all have a bank like my wonderful bank, whose name I don't want to mention because I don't want them accidently coming up in a scam report.