Classified ad sites: beware of the Western Union scam

Western Union is a well-known player in the money transfer business, and is also a favourite with scammers on sites such as Leboncoin, La Centrale, Paru Vendu or any other classified ad site for private individuals. This scam targets potential buyers, lured by an excellent deal that turns out to be a scam. This very common scam requires extreme vigilance.

This scam is based on the same principles as the fraudulent use of the Obvy brand, which is aimed at sellers. Note that some scammers will apply the same technique of using fake Western Union pages to target potential sellers, so one thing doesn't preclude the other!

The principle of issuing a mandate is always the same:

• Go to a post office or Western Union branch
• Show proof of identity
• Pay the amount of the mandate by credit card or in cash
• Give the mandate number to the person you wish to pay

And let's be honest, this kind of payment with a stranger is unconscionable! If a payment is requested in this way, you can now be almost certain that it is an attempted scam. Explanations:

A case too good to be true

Firstly, you need to analyse the ad you're looking at carefully! You can find out more about techniques for detecting them in our article "Recognising a fake ad". Scammers who target buyers they want to make their victims often start by posting extremely tempting classified ads to arouse envy and make buyers lower their guard, in a hurry to strike a seemingly excellent deal.

Don't be naive

One of the basic rules, if you want to avoid a number of scams, is never to believe in bargains. An iPhone for €100, a car for less than it's worth, an item that's as good as new at a knock-down price... It's sad to say, but it's too good to be true! If you ask the seller about their reasons for selling and the price, they'll usually give you some touching explanation to elicit your sympathy and trust: death of a relative who owned the property, major financial problems, need for quick cash after a tragedy, sudden departure for a foreign country, etc.

In any case, the characteristic modesty of an honest human being will very rarely lead them to give such a level of detail to a stranger on a classified ad site... So beware.

The scammer's aim is simple: to initiate discussions with as many buyers as possible in order to increase the impact of the scam and have at least one victim to fleece, if not more if he is lucky.

Register now on Obvy and get £5 free with the code STOPARNAQUE

The swindler will put pressure on you to give in

Once he senses that you've taken the bait, the scammer will try to play on his victim's nerves so that he puts caution aside for fear of losing the sale. He'll make them believe that he's in a hurry, that the sale must be concluded quickly, and that he's being extremely solicited by other buyers who would be quicker.

It is at this precise moment that the bogus salesperson will exert real psychological pressure on the victim, verging on a form of harassment. And very often, it works.

The final stage of the scam: payment

Once he has got the buyer to sell, he will give you his contact details so that you can proceed with the mandate. The buyer may think that if anything goes wrong, he will have a way of tracing the transaction back to the seller, but this is not the case. In fact, the fraudster will have declared false information when opening his Western Union account, and once the funds have been withdrawn, it will simply be impossible to trace them back to the source.

It should be noted that the vast majority of money order scams are operated from abroad, which makes the task even more complicated. Once the money order has been made, the scammer simply disappears and the victim has no way of getting back what was taken from them.

It's good to know that scammers can target sellers and use Western Union by combining this payment method with cheque scams, as explained in our article on this subject.

There is a solution to avoid all these scams

And it comes in the form of a mobile application: Obvy. We've created the ultimate secure payment method for transactions between private individuals on all classified ad platforms. Everything is perfectly traced, secure and simplified, so that buyers and sellers are perfectly safe and can never fall victim to any kind of scam. Opt for a payment solution that's really suited to making good deals, while staying out of trouble!