Problems with Xoom.com
Februar 14, 2007
It’s Valentine’s Day but I’m not in the mood to give love to 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 funds were deposited to her bank account in just one day. Now, that’s really zoom, zoom, zoom.
But this latest transaction was not. Yesterday, two days after I initiated the 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 the reason for the cancellation. Why they can’t or won’t include this reason in your member page or at least the email notification escapes me.
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 held on for 10 minutes before deciding to hang up.
A simple search in Google yields hundreds of similar Xoom stories. There’s one who complained about his transaction also getting canceled without any explanation and another who ranted about Xoom’s poor customer service.
I don’t heart Xoom and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Got your own Xoom problem or story? Share them below!
Related forum discussion: Your Xoom.com Experience
Juli 9th, 2009 at %H:%M
ndi ko alam kung paano nila maibabalik ung kinancel nila na transaction sa akin. may charges agad sa credit card ko. i’m just hoping na i-revert nila ung transacation. unang email nila okay daw, then maya maya ng konti, cancelled daw tapos nung checked ko sa website ung transaction na pumasok sa credit card ko, ayun na bawas na doon ung amount na pinadala ko dapat pero CANCELLED!!! kapal ng ZOOM!!!
November 6th, 2009 at %H:%M
xoom is nothing more than an online scam. you use their service, charge you for that, cancel your transaction, and hold your money for ages. they really suck!!!
Januar 2nd, 2010 at %H:%M
I have used xoom.com for nearly a year without a hitch. Then suddenly I find all transactions are automatically cancelled. I talked to their “Customer Verification” and they ask loads of irrelevant and personal questions about the friends I send to. Then tell me I violated their TOS and I can’t use their service anymore!! They told me it was intended for Family and Friends! So my Filipino FRIEND, who I know well and who’s family are all known to my family and who urgently required the money can’t be helped.
It has caused great inconvenience to them. I recommend that xoom not be used for any transfer that is essential to the recipient. Use Western Union instead.
I would never trust xoom again.
März 6th, 2010 at %H:%M
I stopped using xoom to transfer money to friends in the Philippines over a year ago. Two days ago I got 13 emails from xoom confirming transactions that had been made in 2008 to one specific person. I thought it was odd, but ignored them. Twelve hours later I got this email:
“We write to inform you that, after careful review, we have disabled your Xoom account for violations of the Xoom User Agreement, effective immediately. This decision cannot be appealed, and our customer service team will not be able to discuss the matter with you beyond restating the above. Nonetheless, if you feel compelled to contact Xoom regarding this decision, you may send an email to us at account-compliance@xoom.com.
Very truly yours,
The Xoom Compliance Team”
Gotta love that “very truly yours” closing!!!! So anyway, I wrote back asking why this had occurred since I hadn’t even used the service in over a year. I also suggested that perhaps they had a systems problem that was suddenly generating useless emails.
Last night I got another series of emails from xoom, this time for a different person I had sent money to. This time I wrote customer service and account compliance suggesting very strongly that they’ve been hacked or have some other serious SECURITY PROBLEM.
I cannot get into my account because it has been terminated. Although, in some comic twist, I can reset my password, but then cannot sign in. Xoom is not a well-run business as the comments here will attest. But right now I’d be VERY CONCERNED about the security of your private and personal information on their server. Something very bad is happening at xoom.
Cancel your account quick!!!
März 7th, 2010 at %H:%M
Same thing happened to me as with Jim and I havent used their service in over 6 months, so I am wondering what is happening. In fact, I only used them 2 times. Anyone have any further updates?