Western Union Scams

I can't believe that there are people that still fall for these Western Union scams. How does it make any sense to send someone $200 and you will receive a $500,000 check?

We do Western Union money transfers at our store, and recently we've gotten people in who had no idea they were being scammed. But we did.

About a year ago this regular customer came in wanting to send money to Nigeria. That's warning number 1 right there; sending money to Nigeria. I think he was going to send something like $50.

I asked him if he knew the person and he's like 'Oh yeah, it's this girl I know.' Warning number 2: Most of the time it's a girl pleading to guys that they need money, when in actuality it's some big, fat, bald guy with a really high voice.

So on further investigation with this customer he told me that he's sending money to this girl he's been talking to online. She lives in Nigeria and needs money to get to the airport so that she could go see him. How $50 will get her from Nigeria to the U.S., I have no clue.

So I told him that there were scams going around and that he shouldn't send this money. He assured me that he knew the woman, and insisted that I send his money, so I did.

I didn't see him for awhile, but I did notice throughout the next few months that he had sent more money to this girl in Nigeria. Always in amounts of $50.

About a year later I finally saw him again. I asked him if that Nigeria girl ever visited him and he's like 'Nah, that thing was a scam.' And blew it off like it was no big deal. I wanted to tell him 'I told you so', but I didn't want to make it worse. He ended up saying that she (who was probably a big massive Nigerian guy), kept asking him to send money, which he did, and she never came to visit him once.

All I want to say is that you should always listen to your friendly cashier. I watch enough Judge Judy to know that people are still getting scammed by these Nigerian people, lottery scams and various other 'foundations'. If we tell you that we think what you are involved in is a scam, then please listen. We do actually know what we are talking about.

Has anyone out there been scammed by anything like this? Or do you know anyone that fell for a scam?