Phil Huang

Xoom.com Money Transfer Service

I recently used Xoom.com to send money abroad and had a very frustrating experience. I used Xoom because it was cheaper and more convenient than doing an international wire transfer at my bank. I actually used a coupon code that waived the $9.99 credit card transaction fee as well. For convenience and my privacy, let’s just say I sent $20. Without the transaction fee, I should be charged $20, but instead a $49.98 charge showed up on my credit card. That’s an extra $19.98, which looks like they double-charged that transaction fee.

Calling Customer Service

After emailing them and getting no response, I called their customer service line and finally spoke to someone after waiting on hold for 10 minutes. The call lasted 20 minutes and went no where. The rep asked all the typical info to verify my identity and the find the transaction in question. After explaining what happened, a little arguing, and another hold, the rep came back and said she pulled the wrong info and asked for my information again. Does that make any sense? During verification shouldn’t she have noticed the info I was providing was wrong? Now that I think about it, I’m wondering whether she pulled up any info the first time.

Mail in my Credit Card Statement?!

Then she asked me to send (snail mail!) in my credit card statement so they can verify I was overcharged. How does that even make sense? They charge me the amount, my credit card paid them that amount, so one way or another they have a record of it. Why would I need to mail in my statement to prove what I’m saying? I believe this is just a hurdle they use to make people give up. She seemed a little flustered as I was being forceful – perhaps this was going off script for her. So she put me on hold again (briefly).

Xoom, Get Your House in Order

Then she said their records show I was in fact just charged $20.00. I said my statement shows a $49.98 charge from Xoom Corporation and that I would have to pay that to the credit card. The simple fact is they overcharged me for no reason. She said again that’s why I should send in the statement. And I explained that there’d be no way for me to follow up on that, no way to tell if they received it or linked it my transaction, no way of knowing when they would get back to me, and the process would likely take weeks considering how this one call was progressing.

Nothing Accomplished

So she basically gave up and said that she would escalate this to a specialist and they’d get back to me within 24 hours. Then she mentioned they have trouble with their coupon system. Oh, come on. So I kindly explained that if no one gets back to me, I’d dispute the extra charge directly with my credit card company. And that was that.

So 30 minutes later and nothing was accomplished. Xoom is not worth the trouble if something goes wrong. Xoom has left me with a very sour first impression and I will not be using it again. I’d be extremely surprised if someone gets back to me. We’ll see.

But one way or another I’m getting that extra charge back. I don’t care if it were $5.00, it’s the principle. I just can’t stand getting ripped off, especially by people/companies that somehow think this is an acceptable way to do business and think they can get away with it.

A Positive Update: Issue Resolved

You can see below in the comments that Mr. Frank Walter, Xoom’s relatively new VP of Customer Operations, followed up with my case and got someone to help me resolve the issue. I have been refunded that extra fee. Mr. Walter admits to customer service problems and seems sincere in wanting to turn it around. Obviously a company VP can’t resolve everyone’s specific problems, but the fact that they’re acknowledging a problem and plans to improve is a step in the right direction. Many companies will never, ever publicly admit a problem.

The specialist the original rep mentioned never got back to me and everything I said originally is a true accounting of what happened. However, aside from the overcharge and my experience from calling in, the Xoom money transfer itself actually went through very quickly (1 day). I suppose they’ve had their coupon system fixed, lest they get deluged with more issues like mine.

If their customer service is up to snuff and technical issues like this are prevented, the service is great. But right now, if something goes wrong, dealing with customer service is a real pain. Obviously, time will tell whether their customer service improves, but if you don’t run into technical problems like mine, your money typically gets to the recipient fairly quickly.

BOTTOM LINE:
The Xoom service is more convenient, faster, and cheaper than doing an international wire transfer at your bank, but slow and unhelpful customer service and technical glitches (if they happen) can cause a lot of frustration.

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Philip

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Comments

7 responses to “Xoom.com Money Transfer Service”

  1. Frank Walter

    Hi Phil,

    My name is Frank Walter and I am the Vice President of Customer Operations at Xoom. I read your post yesterday and wanted to respond. First of all I wanted to apologize for the technical issue you referenced – it is true that we experienced a systemic error that resulted in duplicate charges to clients who used a coupon that was intended to provide a free transaction. We identified the problem and corrected it within a few hours, however, about 200 customers were impacted. We refunded each customer and regret the inconvenience this error caused.

    More importantly, however, I want you to know that I unfortunately agree with your assessment of the grim level of service you endured when you engaged our organization and apologize for the frustration you experienced. I acknowledge we are currently not delivering the quality of service we know you and the rest of our customers deserve and I agree this absolutely unacceptable. I have recently joined Xoom and am solely focused on re-engineering our customer support experience. We have several initiatives underway which I am confident will dramatically improve our support capabilities, including implementing a new training model, building new tools that will improve our support team’s effectiveness and expanding our staffing models to ensure calls and emails are responded to in a timely manner. I have been in the support industry for over 15 years and know exactly what kind of support our customers expect, not to mention the quality of support I expect as a customer myself. I am confident we will see the level of service Xoom provides improve significantly in the next few months. My email address is Frank.Walter [at] xoom.com – please feel free to contact me if you would like to continue this discussion.

    Thanks

    Frank

    Reply
  2. kimy

    xoom sucks they dont want to give your money always say cancelled

    Reply
  3. lynette silvano

    i am a xoom.com customer for about 4yrs. in the beginning it’s really helpful and reliable.but recently i really had 2 very bad experince. i wanted to send money urgently bec my mom was in the hopital, and really need money so soon,i sent the money and i didnt know about the clearing rules that they have, that my mom was in trouble in the hosp. i couldnt imagine how u feel that being a patient waiting for urgent funds for treatments and you cant do it bec of the clearing process of xoom. the fund was deducted immediately but if you cancel the transaction will take 5-10 days to be refunded…….and i tried for the second time…my sister need an operation, again i tried, and the same way happened.i was thankful that my family in the philippines are not dying…if not thank you very much xoom.com for not saving life…….pls post on your home page options in sending, make clear to ur customers about the clearing process so that you could keep them…………………

    Reply
  4. Robert Creese

    I also just had a bad experience with xoom on 1-3-2011 I tried sending money to my fiances sister because she was watchig our daughter and she got sick. She needed money to go to the doctors to be checked out to see what was wrong. I sent to 2 people with this account and both had the same last family name but still it was canceled along with my account. I also tried calling to find out what the problem was and couldn’t hear more than a few words out of every sentence. I thought maybe it was my phone so I tried to call again with my cell phone. The same thing I could clearly hear the Automated parts but could only hear a few words from the representatives. After about 30 or 40 minutes and I will admit to being frustrated I blew up and swore at the representative and asked to speak with a supervisor. I still couldn’t hear very well but even he admitted that he didn’t see a problem with me sending to 2 people with the same last name. I will admit to having another account with xoom before and that account I did send to about 6 or 7 people. So that one while I was upset that it was canceled without warning or an explanation I could almost understand that it looked suspicious. So I used a couple of other services for about 6 months and then opened a new xoom account with another email address I had. For 6 months or so they processed my transfer without question until I sent the last one to my future sister -in-law. I know you have rules and you want to protect your company but the least you can do is explain what rule we broke or you think we did. When I contacted xoom about the first incident they told me that the cancelation final and that they didn’t have to explain why it was canceled. And so far this seems to be going in the same direction. Fortunately I was able to send the money with Western Union so my daughter could see a doctor. My daughter will be alright the doctor thinks it was something she ate and gave her medicine for it. But I have to admit that even if my account is reactivated I’d have to seriously think about using your service again. Saving a few dollars just isn’t worth the risk that if I send money to someone it won’t get there because you think I’ve broken a rule. Especially when I never could find out what rule I broke.

    Reply
  5. ANONYMOUS

    XOOM SOFTWARE OR/AND XOOM CUSTOMER SERVICE DOES NOT WORK HALF THE TIME, THAT THERE ARE LOT F IDIOTS WORKING FOR XOOM, THAT IT IS SCAREY HALF TH TIME TO USE XOOM

    Reply
  6. Randy Russell

    I have been using xoom’s service for many years now and have never had a problem with them, up until now.
    In May I made my usual transfer to my wife except this time they doubled the transaction and of course doubled the transaction fees as well.
    As soon as I became aware of this I contacted their so-called customer service department and notified them of the additional unauthorized transaction and told them to cancel the one I did not authorize. I was told they could not do that since the funds had already been deposited into my wife’s account.
    I checked my sending account but no funds had been debited. I then contacted my sending bank of the discrepancy of the two transactions since doubling these transactions would put my account in a insufficient balance, which would be the first time ever my account has ever been overdrawn, of course my bank has now charged me a $ 35 fee for the over draft as well as an additional $20 fee for being below the minimum deposit of $1,000 so all in all I just got fleeced for 4.99 x 2 xoom transaction fees approximate $44 for exchange rate fees totaling $108.98 of lost income.
    My bank made out,xoom made out and myself, my children, and my wife all lose.
    Seems xoom can only give me assumptions of why this happened which I made apparent to them their assumption made no sense. Obviously they don’t care and I no longer care about them so I guess we’re even now.
    Keep doing business like this Xoom and you will see your loyal clientele list diminish one person at a time.
    Good Luck With That.

    Reply
  7. Jim G

    It’s June 2017, and I am having a similar issue with Xoom that Phil had. I am today, emailing Frank Walter and requesting his assistance.

    I am curious why Xoom doesn’t vet clients first, then allow them to transfer funds. Why allow a client to set up a transfer and all seems well only to have it canceled? The negative experience has probably driven much new business away. I am stubborn however and hope to use Xoom’s service.

    I will update my comments IF I receive any feedback from Xoom.

    Reply

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