MoneyGram Money Transfers

[luckysandpiper]

Does anyone make regular payments to overseas relatives using the MoneyGram On-Line service? If, like me, you do then you may not be aware that for every transaction that goes from the UK via their clearance agency in Ireland, MoneyGram first puts through a transaction for £1.37 presumably to 'validate' the debit/credit card being used. If this transaction is cleared by the card operator, the actual transaction is then put forward for clearance. Six times in the last three months I have had transactions blocked by the card operator who sees the sequence as a possible fraud operation. Apparently, there is nothing to indicate that the £1.37 is a 'test' transaction and as such it then sits in your card account waiting for MoneyGram to claim it - after 10 days it is cancelled by the card operator. Why £1.37 ? No idea. UK mail order companies sometimes use the same procedure, but with an amount of one penny.

The process makes a mockery of their 'money in 10 minutes' claim since it can often take a couple of hours to get the transfer cleared. I emailed a complaint that wasn't answered and I have now put my complaint in writing to them. I'll let you know the outcome.

 

Luckysandpiper

[richv100]

Yes this is something that I experience all of the time. Unfortunately I use a prepaid mastercard (paypal access) to send the money via moneygram and the moneygram system times out. This means today I sent £245 but had to try 10 times to put it through costing me £13.70 all in all (plus the eventual moneygram £3.99 fee). Ok the £13.70 will eventually return to the card but last time this took 10 days. I also sent an email and heard absolutely nothing back. I am interested to know if they replied to the letter and they are legally obliged to do so as a financial service provider, actually they are also obliged to reply to the email even if to say you need to call or write but an auto response does not count.

 

Thanks

[Old Cogger]

use Western Union ==== No Problems = done and dusted , and we use very regular

 

 

money ready for pick up within minutes used for years now