Is Western Union reliable? Does anyone have specific experience. I am curious for both simple personal transactions and business models, etc, etc receiving and paying.

Western Union is geared towards personal transfers, not business transfers obviously. You are not protected like PayPal – caution should be used when sending payment by Western Union.

• some legitimate sellers do accept W U, but some are scams
• unlike a normal bank transfer, one cannot track the transfer after the recipient claims the money
• Western Union is a quick way to send sums of money to a physical location from your account

For sending payments:

• Identify the sender and W U location
• Choose payment source: bank account, W U Card, etc.
• Hold on to confirmation statements

For receiving payments:

• W U will give you an MTCN number, but this is often just for administrative purposes
• You will need to properly identify yourself and the sender in order to receive the money
• You may need the MTCN number for international transactions or rare situations
• Also, exchange rate fees will apply for international transactions

The card does have costs tho. I’ve started using another service I really like. I think it’s easier to use then WU myself and it has better features. It’s called AccountNow, and it is just a lot more user-friendly – again, IMHO – than WU. Here are the details of the WU card compared to AccountNow:

• AccountNow has 148,000 locations; Western Union has 43,000.
• AccountNow’s max card balance is $10,000; WU’s is $2,500.
• They are both FDIC-insured.
• AccountNow offers Credit Builder, which helps you build a payment history; Western Union does not.
• AccountNow has free online bill pay; WU charges $0.99 per payment.
• AccountNow offers free SMS text alerts; Western Union does not offer this feature.
• AccountNow has no card activation fee; WU’s is up to $7.95.
• AccountNow offers $20 per friend referral; Western Union doesn’t offer this service.
• AccountNow provides the iAdvance® Line of Credit; WU doesn’t have a feature like this.
• AccountNow has a Personal Finance Info Center; WU doesn’t.
• AccountNow’s average monthly card usage cost is $7.50; Western Union’s is $8.96.