What is Western Union: translation features, branches, conditions, reviews

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

What is Western Union matters to everyone who today is faced with the need to make a money transfer. This is an American company that specializes in providing such services. Having appeared on the market in the middle of the 19th century, it is currently one of the leaders in this financial industry.

Founding a company

The Americans first learned what Western Union is. The company was founded by entrepreneur and industrialist Hiram Sibley and Judge Samuel Selden.

Sibley came to Rochester to work in real estate and banking. Soon he was elected Sheriff of Monroe County, after which he met Judge Selden. The latter owned the rights to patents for the Royal House telegraph. In 1849, they founded their first telegraph company, but soon decided to change direction, as they realized that they could not cope with the high competition in this market.

Selden, after analyzing the market, decided insteadsetting up a new telegraph line to begin unifying all telegraph companies west of Buffalo into a single network.

The partners turned to influential New York businessmen for help. They offered to finance the project for a share in it. Seven years later, the company changed its name to Western Union.

Activities

There are currently over half a million Western Union branches around the world. The company serves users in more than two hundred countries around the world.

It is noteworthy that it works not only with individuals, but also receives impressive defense and government orders. In particular, it serves the US Armed Forces and the Federal Government.

Work in Russia

About what Western Union is, they learned in Russia in 1991. Since that moment, the company has been operating in the territory of our country through its daughter, Western Union DP Vostok Open Joint Stock Company.

Since 2006, the American company has been closely cooperating with the largest state-owned enterprise in the field of communications - Russian Post. About two and a half thousand service points of the company have since been opened in post offices, which made its services much more accessible to Russians.

In total, there are currently more than twelve thousand customer service points in our country. In the Russian market, the company controls about 15 percent of all money transfers, ranking third after Russian Post and Sberbank.

Send transfer

What is Western Union, everyone knows who is faced with the need to send money transfers across the territory of the Russian Federation or to other countries.

You can transfer money not only at customer service points, but also on the company's website. To do this, create your profile and register. After that, enter information about the recipient, as well as the credit or debit card from which the corresponding amount will be sent.

After that, the client receives an SMS message with an identification code on his phone, which serves as confirmation of his consent to the actions taken.

Any person can send money through Western Union as soon as they create their profile and verify their identity. You don't have to be a permanent resident to do this. You can also transfer money through the Internet bank in Western Union.

It is worth noting that profile verification after registration usually takes up to three hours. If the person who registers in the system is not a citizen of the Russian Federation, this period may be extended to two days.

Translation features

When transferring to Western Union, there are certain features that you should be aware of. The amount sent via the Internet cannot be less than one hundred and more than 15 thousand rubles. At the same time, during the day there is a limit on transfers equal to 30 thousand rubles. One user can send no more than one hundred thousand rubles per month.

Afterconfirmation of identity, the amount of transfers during the day increases to one hundred thousand rubles.

An important point: when registering a profile, be sure to indicate an address located on the territory of the Russian Federation. Profile confirmation is required from the user when trying to transfer an amount of more than 15 thousand rubles. In this case, you will need to provide your passport details exactly as they appear on your document.

Work of branches

You can send money to Western Union at the nearest branch of the company. As a rule, such services are used by entrepreneurs, travelers, people who support their friends and relatives living abroad, anyone who needs to make fast international transfers.

To send a money transfer to Western Union, you will need to fill out the appropriate form and present an identity card to the employee. After that, transfer the transfer amount in cash or from the card and sign the required documents.

Unlike online transfers, you can send almost any amount through a Western Union branch. True, when making large transactions (with an amount of more than 7.5 thousand dollars), you will need to provide additional documents or information that the company's employees will require from you. At the same time, please note that when transferring money from Russia abroad, there is a limit of $5,000 per day established by law.

After sending the transfer, you can track its status on the sitecompanies. To do this, you only need to enter the name and surname of the sender and the control number of the transfer, which will be given to you at the branch. By entering your mobile phone number, you can receive an SMS notification when the transfer is delivered to the addressee.

Getting money

To receive a transfer to Western Union, you must contact any branch of the company with documents that can confirm your identity. You will also need to provide the control number of the money transfer, which you need to ask the sender.

When receiving the money, fill out the appropriate form, hand it over to the company employee along with your identity documents and provide the control number of the money transfer.

Please note that when filling out the form, you will need to specify the data of the sender from whom you receive money, the country from which they came, the full amount, a unique transaction number.

To receive a transfer in Western Union, you do not have to pay anything, since all commissions are borne by the sender. An exception can only be if you wish to receive the amount in another currency or to another account.

Commission

The size of the commission paid by the sender depends on a number of factors. In particular, on the size of the amount and the country in which the funds will be received.

When transferring to the CIS countries in foreign currency, the commission will be one hundred rubles with an amount of 100 to 10,000. If the amount is larger, then 1% of the transfer amount will need to be paid as a commission.

You can also send transfers in Russian rubles to the CIS countries. This condition is available for Belarus, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. In this case, a commission of one hundred rubles will be taken when transferring from 100 to 5,000 rubles. If the amount is higher, you will be charged 2% of the transfer amount.

If you send money to foreign countries, the same fees apply as when transferring money to CIS countries in foreign currency.

If you make a transfer through a bank branch, then the commission for amounts up to 10,000 rubles will be equal to 100 rubles. With an amount from 10,001 to 100,000 rubles - 1% of the transfer amount. For transfers in excess of 100,000 - one thousand rubles.

Departments

To send or receive a money transfer, you will need to use one of the Western Union branches. Today, several thousand representative offices of this company operate in Russia. They are open in almost all cities of our country.

It became especially convenient when the American money transfer company entered into an agreement with Russian Post. Western Union now has a presence in most post offices.

Customer Experiences

Many customers highly appreciate the work of this company, being satisfied with the cooperation with it. They note a large number of branches across the country, high speed of money transfers, ease of use and reliability - you definitely won’t have to worry about the fate of your money.

It is of great importance that all operations on the site are so simple that even the most inexperienced user can handle them. And if you come to the department, then here the employees will provide you with all the necessary assistance.

Negative

At the same time, it is worth recognizing that some customers face shortcomings in the operation of this system. The result is negative feedback. In this case, they do not advise anyone to use this service.

Recently, users are faced with unpleasant situations when they are denied receiving money sent from abroad, citing their links with terrorist organizations. Moreover, in such situations we are talking about fairly small money. For example, about 100-150 dollars. Of course, this rarely happens, but it does happen. If a client is suspected of such connections, one should be prepared for the fact that it can be extremely difficult to prove one's case.

Outraged reviews related to the high commission when sending money transfers are much more common. Especially when compared to other similar services. There is a feeling that the company considers itself a monopolist in this market, since it maintains rates at this level. Although in reality this is not the case. The competition in this area is quite high, so the company has fewer and fewer customers every year. As a result, many send money via Western Union only if there are no other money transfer companies in the recipient's city.

Another downside is bug fixes. As in all other payment systems, if there is an error in the user or sender data, the transfer is not issued until all information is corrected and corrected properly. However, if in other systems this can be done automatically, then in Western Union this requires filling out a special application (it’s good that it’s in electronic form) and then sending it by fax. All this is very long and inconvenient. This attitude demonstrates that customers are not taken care of enough.