Pre Trip: Western Union & Goa NYE '08

What do they have in common you might ask? Well, for the first time in my life I wired money and I used Western Union. And it was scary. I have a vague impression of western union ads from the 80s and 90s, and I remember really liking them. Fast forward to November 19, 2008. You don't really see Western Union ads anymore, but they did a good job branding so I think of them after I've finally booked new years accommodations on Calangute beach, the epicenter of Goa's beach life. It's a small place (only 6 guest rooms), run by a local couple Max & Jessica. They offered the best rate I could find on the whole 2 mile stretch of beach. It's a 5 minutes walk to the beach and they're asking 3000 rs/night for a double (that's about $60). Even that seemed expensive to me, and by average Indian standards it is, but we're talking Goa's highest of high seasons here! After doing some research, I discovered that the going rate for rooms in other, larger hotels are anywhere from $200-650/night and even higher for the most luxurous accomodations! India! Where I've never paid a dime for hotels because I've always stayed with family. Guru, I say to myself, we're not in Bangalore anymore.

So back to Western Union. The couple running the hotel (it's really classified as a B&B, but don't tell Ravi) requests that I send the full amount for the 4 nights I'm booking via wire, I was skeptical so I called them up to ask them personally, and see if they take credit cards. They don't have a credit card machine and of course, they asked me to wire the money via Western Union. Now I start to think of Nigerian lost relatives and deposed military leader email scams. But that's me getting paranoid, I look up the local Western Union and find there's one on the other side of my town. On the WE website I find that wiring money to india costs $30+, and you can use credit card, however, it's only $10 for amounts under $1000 at the WE location itself (cash only though) and it sends the money instantly to hundreds of thousands of WE locations worldwide. 320,000 locations to be exact. If you clicked on the 80s commercial with "George" from Seinfeld in it, you'll notice they said 15,000 locations. Now that's growth. And growth means a Harvard Business Case Study.

So I get the cash from an ATM and drive over to my local WE agent. Turns out standalone WE's don't really exist. The location was a "Cash and Go" payday lending, check cashing service. Just then I recall that there was a WE agent on the corner of 16th and Valencia in the Mission District in San Francisco. Lot's of immigrants send money back home, I thought to myself. I remember hearing a stat on NPR, something like $2.2 Billion dollars was sent back home to Mexico from US relatives in August 2007. They're called "remittances". The other thing about these payday loan come wire service facilities is that they're located in the relativey shadier areas of any town. In Tracy, CA that's on 11th St. and Tracy Blvd. In Dublin, it's the northwest side. So forth and so on... When I approached the counter, I saw two female clerks sitting behind a thick glass barrier, but ready to conduct business.

I wired the money to the inn-keepers at Goa and quickly emailed the inn-keepers the pass code they needed to receive the money on their end. And that's when they officially confirmed my reservation in Goa! Hoo-ray!