Bad experience with Xoom

[walesrob]

Oh dear....

Normally, Xoom are great, they send money over to the Philippines in an efficent manner, no hassle and normally next day.

BUT, last week it went horribly wrong.

Elsa sent £150 via Xoom to her bank account in Tacloban last week to pay the Pag Ibig and a few other bills for our house in Tacloban. Now, normally she sends the money through Xoom and uses her Paypal account (with all that built protection good idea as you'll see later). On this occasion, the money successfully went from her Paypal account and Paypal emailed to confirm that the transaction is successful, but never arrived at Xoom. No emails from Xoom, nothing, no tracking numbers.

2 days later, we emailed Xoom, and some dipstick said oh yes, weve had some technical problems, and should be resolved the same day. Right.

Day 3 came, still no emails, no notification. So we emailed Xoom again. They said sorry, we are still having technical problems, but we will escalate the issue, and we promise we will let you know the outcome. Did they? No.

Day 4, still nothing, no tracking numbers, no emails. Elsa at this point is worried, £150 is a lot of money to lose, so she phones Xoom Head Office in America, they apologise, and give her some nonsense blaming Paypal. Anyway, they agreed to refund the money back to Paypal in the next 7 days. In a meantime, cheques are bouncing from Elsa's bank account in Tacloban, and a charge of 1000 Php for each bounce.

I reckon the Xoom website must have had some serious problem, but this was made worse by them not bothering to let anyone know whats going on. Worse still, to promise the customer to fix something, then quite plainly not bothering to sort out the problem in my book is a company I can only consider a bunch of pirates. Thank goodness we had the Paypal protection, so worse comes to the worse, we could get them to sort it.

Thanks a lot Xoom, you guys are a waste of space, time and money.

Anyone know of any decent alternative remittance service that allows bank account to bank account service?

[KeithD]

Now you don't get crap customer service with me

In fact have you tried Win2Winoom?
Door to door delivery of any money you wish to send.

For instance, you want to send your £150. I come to you and collect.....along with the return airline ticket to the Phil you purchased for me, and the hotel booking form....and I'll hand it to the recipient the other end. Splendid

[ginapeterb]

Hi Rob,

Sorry to hear about Xoom, what Gin and I do, is use PNB London, I know there have been some adverse about PNB, but once you set up the system, its super fast, or what you can do Rob is call Philipa Lee at LIC in London, you just deposit the money into PNB Europes account with Barclays Knightsbridge, tell Filipina or the other staff there how much you are sending, just do a bank transfer to PNB Europe, or pay it in in cash etc, and then they will send it, it takes about 2 days normally, if you want LIC's number I will Pim it to you.

We have sent large amounts and small amounts, they money always gets there, I can't find a better service, fee is normally around £5.00 to £8.00 and large amounts £21.00

I like things that are consisistently good, and PNB Europe seems to be the one for us.

[joroco]

I'd agree with Peter, once you've registered with PNB, you can send it on the phone just by quoting your debit card. Money sent is virtually instant if to another PNB account in RP. Call them on 0207 397 1340. I prefer that for larger sums. Cristina has a second card on my Nationwide Credit Card account. Nationwide give good exchange rates, and don't charge. The only charge is by the bank where the cash is withdrawn and that is £3.00 for up to 10,000 pesos. To avoid paying interest, pay the same amount immediately into a Nationwide Branch on the account, because they also guarantee to pay off your most expensive credit FIRST!

[CaptB]

Had similar experiences with Xoom last year when i needed to recieve money i was sending to myself. Totally useless if it runs fine no problem. But if you hit an issue no one seems to care.

[KeithD]

Never mind Xoom, I think you have psychological problems if you're sending money to yourself

[walesrob]

Oh wow, now its gone very Pete Tong. Xoom haven't sent the refund yet (they promised within 24 hours) so the money remains in limbo, and Elsa's bank account in Tacloban (EastWest) has been closed due to the cheques bouncing. Great. So now all the post-dated cheques to pay for the Pag Ibig and the multicab are no longer valid.

I hope Xoom are happy with the mess they've made.

[aromulus]

Oh wow, now its gone very Pete Tong. Xoom haven't sent the refund yet (they promised within 24 hours) so the money remains in limbo, and Elsa's bank account in Tacloban (EastWest) has been closed due to the cheques bouncing. Great. So now all the post-dated cheques to pay for the Pag Ibig and the multicab are no longer valid.

I hope Xoom are happy with the mess they've made.

Oh... bugger.........

Sorry to hear that.

Looks like one of you has to go back to phill and start the ball rolling again.....

[love8888]

Thanks Pete for your advice but I had an account in PNB and Metro Bank before I was really annoyed with their customer service once you've got problem it's takes a long time to sorted out specially if your in abroad.

I am now using my HSBC UK send to my HSBC Philippines which is excellent and from my HSBC Philippines Manila Branch sends to Land Bank Tacloban Branch now (as the East West closed the account due to Xoom) and I do it online. I like HSBC I wish they will open a branch in Tacloban as they are really EXCELLENT in customer service all over the world. HSBC always send me a birthday card and a Christmas card and address from Hong Kong.

[A_flyer]

My wife openned a PNB Europe account in Paris (the only problem is that you have to go there in person and bring a lot of papers, as passport, residency card, proof of residency address,... they will not open an account if you are on an illegal stay), the account is based in the Philippines (of course in Pesos).
We just do a bank transfert (it's free as PNB in France use a French bank account for the transfert) and the rate is good (in fact better than directly send to PNB Philippines).
Service is great and even if we have 2 banks transfert it takes less than 2 days to arrive in the Philippines. Fee is 12€ till 2000€ transfert (so far better than other transfert system we tried).
We never had any problem with them till now (we are using it for 2 years).

[chino]

i have no problems with xoom yet but i am going to go down the route of PNB Europe account as it seems the best...

[aromulus]

Funny that......

Transaction started on the 1st of June....

As of today, 10th June, it still reads "deposit in progress".....

But on the other hand, I believe that my sis in law, already has taken the money out of the bank....

Sent them a few emails, but all I get is the standard answers....

Never had problems before....

[aug06_2006]

Oh no, xoom not good in service na..we usually using xoom since!

[andypaul]

Just read this thread for the first time and im sorry Rob and Elsa you have had so much grief. I hope it gets sorted.

One big issue that struck my mind is what do you do if it all goes wrong?

I did read that the goverment was looking into the issue as remittance is such a big industry now.
But companies like Xoom are not UK or EU based as far as im aware. I belive they are governed by US law?

Its something to bear in mind how would you be affected if they lost your money or they went in to liquidation etc?

Many of the brit Phill remittance comapnies seem to be a mixture of british and phill companies under whose law is your money covered by at particular points on its journey over to your loved ones in Phill?

[Fountainhead]

Funny that......

Transaction started on the 1st of June....

As of today, 10th June, it still reads "deposit in progress".....

But on the other hand, I believe that my sis in law, already has taken the money out of the bank....

Sent them a few emails, but all I get is the standard answers....

Never had problems before....

I sent my fiancee $400 on Saturday and she checked her account today and the money is in there but the xoom website is still saying..

The transaction is going through our compliance and fraud screening. We will update the status when these checks are completed

I guess if the money has arrived and they've took correct payment from my credit card it's not really a problem.

[Fountainhead]

Anyone else having problems with xoom at the moment? Just tried to send $400 using the credit card i always use and for some reason it is not authorizing payment. There shouldn't be a problem with that card because i know the balance at the moment is zero. It does expire at end of October this year but can't see why that should cause a problem.

[nparvus1202]

I use Iremit for 6 years now £6/transaction. So far no problem. I used to use Far East in London, also £6 but lower exchange rate.

[amyburple]

SORRY TO HEAR THAT....

[Fountainhead]

Eventually sent it using another another crdit card this morning. Still perplexed why it wouldn't accept the one i usually use