There are several reasons for Western Union to hold funds:The first reason is because either the sender or receiver is on the u201cSpecially Designated Nationals Listu201d or SDN List the Department of Treasury and FBI maintain. They get put on this list for having ties to organized crime, terrorism, narcotics trade, fraud, perpetuating scams, etc. You can see the list here: Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN). If the sender or receiver is on the list, Western Union will hold the funds and are prohibited from paying it out and will refund the senderu2019s money. Donu2019t try using a different spelling of the name because if it comes close, they will block it and they also track where the person picks the money up too and sending it to another country to avoid the system wonu2019t work.The second reason the money could be placed on hold is because of the amount of money being sent. Anything over $1,000 will be put on hold until the sender answers additional questions required by federal law to make sure the person isnu2019t being defrauded, scammed, or committing some sort of wire fraud or money laundering.Another reason the money can be placed on hold is if they suspect a sender or receiver of fraud or money laundering or some sort of financial crime. Agents will call in the suspected person to Western Union and put a block on the transaction and this will kick back the funds to whoever sent the money and they will put both the sender and receiver into the system, so having someone else sending the money wonu2019t work.Western Union will also hold transactions when they see people sending or receiving multiple transactions to the same or different people trying to avoid filling out the 8300 form the IRS needs for senders or receivers to fill out when the transactions hit $10,000. A lot of people donu2019t want to fill that form out and once that happens, Western Union gets notified about that and so do a lot of the agents within that area that there is a customer going around possibly doing something criminal by doing small transactions to avoid filling out that form. The penalties for a person who refuses to fill this out is a fine of $250 or 10% of what they sent if they do not go back to the business and fill it out (plus the money will be held until it is filled out), a SARS report that will be filled out on both the sender and receiver, and/or jail time for both.The agent must have called the Western Union hotline on the individuals suspecting that there is something going on with the person (even though they could have declined the transaction).These are some of the reasons why Western Union will hold transactions.