I don’t heart Xoom.com
It’s Valentine’s Day but I don’t love Xoom.com.
Last Sunday I used Xoom, the money transfer service, to send PayPal funds to a recipient in the Philippines. Yesterday I received an email notification that they are canceling my transaction and refunding my funds.
This was the first time it happened to me, but then again this was only my second transaction with them. Last week, I made exactly the same transaction without a hitch. I sent PayPal to the same recipient and the corresponding peso amount was deposited to her local bank account in just one day. Now, that’s zoom, zoom, zoom.
But this latest transaction was not. Yesterday, two days after I initiated the new transfer request, it got canceled without any explanation. They wrote that the transaction supposedly violated their Terms of Service (TOS). But what exactly this TOS violation was was never explained.
PayPal, another online payment system, at least provides reasons whenever they are reversing transactions or issuing a chargeback. Xoom, on the other hand, wants you to call their US-based Verification Team if you want to know why your transaction was canceled. Why they can’t or won’t include this reason in your member account page or at least the email notification escapes me.
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So what I did earlier today, Valentine’s Day, was to contact Xoom’s Verification Team in the US. I called them up three times — all within their announced business hours (before 5pm PST time, February 13) — but I never got to talk to anyone.
All I got were machine responses such as “Your call is important to us… blah.. blah..” and “We appreciate your patience. A customer service representative will be with you shortly.” Yeah right. I was kept on hold for 10 minutes before I hung up.
A simple search in Google yields hundreds of similar Xoom stories and more. There’s one who complained about his transaction also getting canceling without an explanation and another one who ranted about Xoom’s un-zoom (read: poor) customer service.
I don’t heart Xoom and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Have your own Xoom problem or story? Share them in the Your Xoom.com Experience discussion thread in the PMT Forum.
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March 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
how many days does it take to receive the refund?
February 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I just had my transfer for PayPal to Bank via Xoom canceled without reason also.
It seems Philippines PayPal to Philippines bank is not allowed.
Why don’t they tell you that, instead of saying I “violated the terms of service”?
How long to wait for a refund?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am
That really sucks. Until now, I don’t know why Xoom cannot at least explain why transactions get canceled. Having customers call their US-based Verification Team is not a very good way to keep customers happy.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:36 am
This is exactly what happened to me too, and I now unfortunately join the ranks of unhappy Xoom patrons. :(
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