Is it safe to send money by western union to nigeria?

This would probably be one important question a lot of people who might have received business or other proposals on the internet would like to ask. Is it really safe to send money by means of western union in Nigeria? Well, I would say Yes!. This is considering the fact that western union policies for people receiving money in Nigeria has sort of improved. Now, recipients would have to at least have a working bank account with any bank from where they seek to receive western union payments.

The banking industry is working close with western union in trying to curb the bad eggs in the society who are giving the service a bad name. It's true that there are a couple of scammers, mostly the internet savvy youth who write and send chains of emails to people around the work and they target particularly rich and middle-class people in the USA, Canada and Britain.

The normal thing to do in order to avoid being duped by such scammers as western union and banks in Nigeria have urged is not to send money to anyone who is not close to you for instance, if you've not seen the person face to face before and just met on the internet. While this is a good idea, you may actually be losing honest good business opportunities but it seems to be getting safer now as more Nigerian banks have a policy of knowing their customers and so western union payments would not just be paid out to any stranger.

Tips for keeping safe with western union in Nigeria
- Don't send to someone you don't know or have never done business with
- You may still send to someone in Nigeria if it's payment for goods or services you've already received. Try not to scam the Nigerian though
- If you just want to test the person, you may try sending smaller amounts in bits first rather than large sums at once. You may also send a bank wire directly to the person's account for the first time to verify his identity before trying out western union

Western union payments in Nigeria are now safer
Not totally safe though but banks now only pay to account holders and the recipients too have to provide a current form of identification before collecting payments. So if you want to send money via western union to someone in Nigeria, it's ok if the person is a known friend, family or long time business partner. If the expected recipient is a stranger or prospective business partner but you are still trying to trust him, then you can get his bank details and do a bank to bank wire to validate the person's identity b4 doing any future business with him.