According to a Reddit user, they tried to wire funds to the Kraken exchange and were told that Western Union does not allow transactions related to cryptocurrency.
The message received stated:
Please be advised that we have determined your transaction is related to cryptocurrencies. This is one of the purposes of trading that we do not allow as per our internal regulations, which is why the transaction cannot be processed and the funds will be returned back to your bank account in full.
As any P2P bitcoin (or other) trader will tell you, this is nothing new from Western Union. They've been banning anyone and everyone for years if they learn of virtual currency being transacted. Which is in part, hilarious, considering they are one of the companies on the planet who can legally do this in just about every single country on earth.
Any Evidence?
Without any further understanding of the transaction it's hard to say exactly what is going on here, but at face value it appears as if Western Union is being rather discriminatory against what can only be assumed as the account in which they were asked to wire the funds to. Kraken isn't actually the company that operates the exchanges legal name. Kraken is legally Payward, Inc. so at a glance Western Union must be using a list of companies they think are involved in digital currency to cross reference transactions with and kick them out.First of all, how is this cryptocurrency related? Where's the proof of that one? Just because Payward, Inc. operated the Kraken exchange doesn't mean that this transaction was cryptocurrency related. Maybe this guy was buying some shares of the company? Perhaps Payward, Inc, does other shit Western Union is unaware of? Perhaps on of Payward, Inc's employees is a family member of the remitting party and stranded on the south side of Brazil in desperate need of an airplane ticket and Payward, Inc. has agreed to cover half the cost if the family member covered the rest? Maybe it was a donation for work well done?
The point being, it could have been a million things and Western Union just up and decided what it was without asking.
Secondly, placing value with any exchange doesn't necessarily mean there's a cryptocurrency transaction that going to happen now or ever.
Granted, these are all things that may or may not have been disclosed, but this was all of the information that was provided.
As far as Western Union not being very happy about bitcoin, well SHOCKER THERE!
This is the same company, after all, that got it's panties in a twist over a Christmas ad a few years ago since it depicted bitcoin being cheaper than sending a Western Union wire. Which was, at the time, just an observation of the facts.
Assuming Otherwise
First off this will have zero affect on bitcoin regardless, but just for grins let's assume they did have all of the above and the sender even told them he was going to buy bitcoin on an exchange. It still doesn't make it true and why does Western Union have there feathers all ruffled over a guy sending some money to a United States corporation anyway?Note, this isn't to say just sending cash to a corporation is within Western Unions "internal regulations" but who the hell know what those are?
Is this posted anywhere? Perhaps Western Union has the "right" to refuse service to anyone they so choose to do so but they don't have the right to waste your damn time with misleading or false advertising.
Western Union claims you can wire money to anyone anywhere ... but ... apparently that's not the case if it's got something to do with virtual currency.
Then again we already knew that, so again ... SHOCKER THERE!
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