Can I recover any money from Western Union?

Probably not. You may can file a fraud complaint w/ WU online. If you know the seller's address or location, you may can contact the local authorities in his/her area and try to file charges.
Might I ask what did you purchase? I ask this, as if this seller is a repeat offender and accusations have already been filed somewhere, then your odds could be increase.

Unfortunately, paying w/ WU is a HUGE risk w/ little recourse when fraudulant.
 
Well, it's actually a friend of mine.

I believe she purchased a bag off eBay but I'm not 100% sure. I do know that she wrote the Western Union payment off as a bill because she didn't want her SO to know she purchased a handbag for that price. I'm guessing that was her first mistake?
 
Well, it's actually a friend of mine.

I believe she purchased a bag off eBay but I'm not 100% sure. I do know that she wrote the Western Union payment off as a bill because she didn't want her SO to know she purchased a handbag for that price. I'm guessing that was her first mistake?

Probably, but correspondance w/ this seller could stand as evidence of fraudulant behavior. And most sellers who conduct business in this manner are repeat offenders.

There have been many scammers reported on this forum for such WU transactions.
 
I know you can recover WU payments IF the person who you sent it to hasn't picked the money up yet but, I'm sure since this happened months ago, the seller has already picked up the payment from WU.

Western Union does have a fraud department. I would definiately call them. I don't know if they will be able to help recover the money but, at least if you report it to them, they will have the person's info on file and should prevent the seller from taking payments through WU anymore.
Plus, since they deal these types of situations daily, I'm sure they can point you in the right direction and what you need to do.
 
If the bag was purchased off of Ebay and paid for using WU, Ebay will not get involved with helping her recover any funds. If she wrote off the payment as a bill then she can not prove that she actually paid for a bag. Her first mistake was not to write it off as a bill. Sadly, her first mistake was choosing to send her seller the WU payment in the first place.
 
Yeah, I figured it wasn't a good move.

I don't know if WU has the sellers info because she just sent him the transaction number followed with some secret password so he didn't have to show ID.
 
Yeah, I figured it wasn't a good move.

I don't know if WU has the sellers info because she just sent him the transaction number followed with some secret password so he didn't have to show ID.

O...M...G. YIKES. Not a good plan. She has no way to find out who she sent this $$ to.
Wasn't a Chanel bag, was it?