For the first time in my life, I attempted to send money -- all 21$USD of it -- through Western Union.

It never went through. WU stopped the order, and has now offered me a refund of my money. Which ought to be ... okay?

It took me a while to simmer down. I was pretty emotional about it. The emotions are still there, but in hand.

When I attempted to find out what happened, two conflicting messages came through.

Western Union of course has a Customer Service department and you had better believe they heard from me, as soon as the individual on the other end protested that the WU where they were had no knowledge of the order and no transaction could be completed.

So, you telephone WU Customer service, with your tracking number, and when you work your way through the voice-mail menu, you may inquire about your specific order. I did what I was directed to do, and entered my tracking number (I have an old-fashioned prehistoric telephone), using the telephone's calculator-sized pad of number keys.

A recording came on. The cheerful voice disclosed the date, time and place in which "payment" had been processed. What? Somebody paid out the money?! The place was no place near me, the sender, nor near the recipient. Oh, and how can WU offer me a refund (I've got a code number from Customer Services for that as well) if "payment" was made?

I stayed with the call and used the voice-mail options to go further with my complaining/inquiring; this took me at last to a live-and-in-person operator. Poor child. Feminine gender, first language positively not English, when I asked her to repeat her name she courteously did so but I still couldn't understand the name -- it wasn't "Deepa" exactly but it had those vowels, I just don't know what her name is.

Our conversation was civil for a while. She was unfailingly polite and well-mannered, even when I raised my voice. My voice went up after the operator used my tracking number to pull up some sort of record on her monitor screen. So, did she find an account of a "payment" somewhere, to someone? No, she said something different.

The order record that she read off to me over the phone, stated that the order had been stopped entirely. The reason was stated as a "Business Decision."

At which my voice went up umpteen decibels, slowed way down, and I thundered,
"W H A T    D O E S   T H A T   M E A N   ? !"

But the operator had told me all that she could tell me. So I chilled out, quietly ended the conversation, got back on to the voice-mail, and got directions for filing a complaint.