Anyone sent or received money this way?

How did it work out with reliability, and how much personal info does recipient get from senders account?

I'm thinking of sending western union to a guy in China for something i want, its a small amount of money so its no big deal, but i'd rather not give him any personal info including my telephone #.

Western union has my telephone # on my account that i just created but i am supposed to provide the recipient with a telephone #... does recipient actually need my real number to pickup payment or just his id?

I don't mind western union having my phone number but I just want recipient to have my e-mail for contact info, not my personal phone #.... at least not yet until i do more transactions with him.

 

How did you find this guy in China?
Why not use Paypal?

 

I'm trying to start my own business on the side so its a little complicated as to how i got in touch with him.

I'm more concerned with keeping myself anonymous for the moment as it may be a conflict of interest with my fulltime job.
He's done a little business with my company of employment.

I'm not worried about the money part at all, and he doesn't have Paypal, and I don't either but i think Paypal will provide more info about me to him that I want in this early stage of what i am doing.

I don't want to give out my address or telephone number and even my full name if i can help it.
I can have him send items to a P.O. box... i might use him again or look for another vendor if i'm not satisfied with items.

Any experiences with western union regarding my questions in OP?

 

Drug dealing with the Yakuza eh?

 

Thats Japanese dude...

 

Oh my bad, Triad then

 

A guy in one of my classes just did a presentation on Yakuza the other day... weird!