As part of our VRM discussion at the Internet Identity Workshop last week, one of the ideas we talked about was having a "personal data store" of interactions with vendors, and having a place to document sales, marketing and support interactions from OUR side (the customer’s side). Here’s some more on the concept, from Doc Searls’ photo stream. (Go ahead, click that link.)
While the idea of the "personal data store" is still in development, there’s no reason why we can’t blog the public parts this stuff, both for our own records as well as to help to feed the nascent community of others who may encounter similar issues with vendors in the future. So, to that end, here’s how to cancel an Xdrive account (in this case, the whole process took about 10 minutes once their phone number was located):
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When you go to the Xdrive website to try to cancel the account, the roach-motel help system will inform you to "call the 800# or send an email" to cancel your account. However, doing this search on the Xdrive site actually doesn’t GIVE you an 800# – I tried for 20minutes to find either an 800# or a support email address without success, and finally found a contact # on another website.
Xdrive makes the cancellation as difficult as possible. So, here’s how to do it.
1) Call Xdrive at 866.GO.XDRIVE (866.469.3748)
2) Choose the "Billing" option from the phone tree
3) Answer the myriad questions that the customer service rep will have for you
Make sure you ask for the following pieces of information for your own records:
a) Your cancellation confirmation number (this is a 9 digit number)
b) The agent’s "headset number" (my agent was #:14320)
c) Also, record the time of the call (mine was about 10:35am PDT on 26May2007)
At this point, the account should be canceled.
Note: Xdrive is now owned by AOL, it appears.
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N.B. It would be cool to have a microformat for customer-side support records. I could imagine structuring the following types of items:
– Vendor Name (e.g. Xdrive)
– Contact method (e.g. phone, email, etc.)
– Contact method details (e.g. 866.469.3748)
– Vendor contact identifier (e.g. "14320" or support person’s name or extension #)
– Issue description (e.g. "Cancel an account")
– My URL/URI (e.g. https://christophercarfi.com)
– The call notes
– Related vendors (e.g. AOL)
If we tracked these things, we’d all (a) individually have our own records of these interactions (just like the types of systems that Customer Service Reps have on US) and (b) as a bonus, we free the public portions of the interaction to help other customers similar to ourselves down the road when they search for this stuff online.
There is a threat “theme” at work here. That ability to share mircoformat information (in browser, synch-able with your social networks, email etc.) enables you to share your experience of “getting an interaction fix” for a particular problem. I’ve been sold on this for about 5 years ever since I read a report by John Hagel III on “why the economics of information exchange dictate that it is the individual who is in the best position to hold their personalisation data, and they will trade this data with vendors to get better deals”. I think it might be an interesting experiment to try and model the customer interaction process from information discovery, to negotiation, to provision, to support, to exit, and put these themes at the core of the thinking.
paul, very well spoken! please join us over at the ProjectVRM wiki ( http://www.projectvrm.org ), would love to hear more of your insights!
Will do. Delighted to do so.
Paul. can you give more details on the report and if it’s available online? Thanks.
John’s original paper was in HBR I believe, but his thinking is at http://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspectives/ and a whole bunch of articles are available over at http://www.johnhagel.com/index.shtml, specifically on the area of loosely coupled systems, vendor networks.
Besides not being able to find a support phone number on the xdrive website, their is also a 2.5 GB maximum file limit which is not stated on the main pages of the website. This can waste 10’s of hours trying to resize and reupload a large file into smaller files. It’s states in the website that your filesize can be unlimited for the 5 GB free account. Only after loading and realizing that you can’t share the file will one realize that the 2.5 GB limit is found in the online pdf manual. I found that deleting a 3 GB file appears to have been deleted from the directory but it was not resetting the unused space amount. This required support and only from this website did I find the phone number. xdrive needs some work. As they would say from their support, “Thanks very much for providing that information”
As an recently downsized Senior Tier3 Technical Support Engineer at Xdrive, LLC (www.xdrive.com), now owed by AOL I found this article some what interesting, hence my post.
The first thing that I found curious, the subject.
How To Cancel An Xdrive Account
I can tell you the history of this in detail. Why did VRM pick it as a topic? Why not another vendor? Like ‘Video Professor’! Known as leading vendor for computer based tutorials, uses deceptive advertising and sleight of hand business practices. Consumers beware!
Try canceling one of these ‘Video Professor’ accounts and you’ll appreciate the 10 mins it took you to cancel that Xdrive account.
Why cancel a FREE 5GB Xdrive account? It’s FREE. So, hence it was decided that FREE 5GB accounts would not gete any LIVE support. Only ONLINE support. I’ll admit that it’s outdated and lacking but mostly accurate for the Xdrive offering.
Only PAYING Xdrive (those holding 50GB accounts) consumers get the LIVE support. When they log into thier Xdrive account via the Web Interface they will see the phone number that you posted and the email address to reach out to AOL for support, who has taken over the support that we used to provide in house. So that level of support in now managed by AOL support staff in India and Manila. That’s another story!
So, if NONE PAYING Xdrive consumers call the 1-866 number they most likely will not get any support as that is part of the TOS for FREE 5GB accounts.
I wish I had been at this VRM conference, I could tell stories about the Xdrive/AOL consumers saga and helped VRM and those Xdrive/AOL consumers.
That’s it for now! I’d like to respond to AJ’s post time permitting later.
Thank you so much for posting this information about xdrive and how to cancel. It used to be a good service, but no longer–ever since it was taken over by AOL. Problems with the service working, no support phone number listed for paying customers even while it tells you to call the number listed on the web page. It’s not there. The final straw for me was when I discovered they were requiring file-sharing recipients to open an account. Even though it was “free” many of my colleagues didn’t want AOL to have their personal information. Although I gather Xdrive has modified that policy somewhat, the the other problems remain. I have been trying for days to cancel my account. Finally, with the help of this website, I succeeded. Thank you.
Note to DAM Pro. I reached this page from a Google search after trying unsuccessfully to cancel my _paid_ Xdrive account. I can assure you that even after you log in there is NO information about support email addresses or phone numbers on the Xdrive website. As 24/7 customer service is one of the features they tout for their paid accounts, I find this ironic, to say the least.
On the customer side support format record, it strikes me that there is one very important field missing: success/failure of the contact. I am still waiting to see if my Xdrive account is actually cancelled and my money refunded. 😉
Thanks for the XDrive cancellation contact information. I was also unable to find any info on the website to cancel a paid subscription. What a waste of time.
A successful business begins with good customer service. These guys are doomed.
Thanks so much for this information! I have been trying to find this information for months. It most unfortunate that AOL has taken over X-Drive.
I think we should all lodge a class action suit against AOL. They just lost another case for doing the same thing on AOL email. This kind of company has to be put to bed. They can be stopped from ripping people off if we take them to courts. Can you imagine the millions they are stealing from people.
Thank you very much for this advice. I followed the instructions and think I got it done. They have obviously been getting hammered because the guy was extremely nice, didn’t try to get more money out of my pocket and says he cancelled the account. His name was IMO.
Mike
I opened an XDrive account back in Feb of 06 on a “trial” where you had to put in your CC# first and they only billed you if you kept it past 30 days, or something similar.
I used it three weeks, found that I really did not need it and called to cancel it – it took forever on the phone but they canceled it. Before I hung up I confirmed it was canceled and I would not be billed, not once but twice.
In July 06, I return from 120 days of being overseas and I find they are charging me! I call and complain and it takes me well over an hour on the phone, escalating from the first guy to his supervisor, then to the next supervisor. They will only refund me a maximum of three months service ($30) because I “did not cancel on time”.
“Bullsh!t,” say I, “I have the conf number and it is XXXXXXXXXXXXX.”
They reply, “We are sorry but that confirmation number is not recognized by our system thus it is invalid. However, we will do you a FAVOR and refund the last three months.”
After 30 minutes of arguing, I end up settling for that.
Fast forward to this summer.
I return from another, much longer trip to someplace hot and sandy and what do I find when I’m going thru 12 months worth of mail?
07/02/2007 XDRIVE.COM 703-433-0141 CA
$9.95
“WTF?” say I.
So I call them on 5 July and go thru this loooong drawn out ordeal with two people who seem to have flunked ESL.
During the two hours on the phone and much talk on their ends about “let me set your expectations” and other CSR distractions such as “let me put you on hold so I can check and see what I can do to help you”…
I finally told the guy to never say that to me again because I’d be setting my own expectations – and my expectation is that they credit my account for the full balance for the entire time they have been charging me.
I escalated thru 4 people this time and got only 5 months of what was probably over a year of charges out of them and yet another confirmation that it was indeed and for certain, canceled.
Guess what shows on this months bill.
07/11/2007 TWX*Xdrive by AOL 0707 866-GOXDRIV NY
$9.95
07/11/2007 XDRIVE.COM 703-433-0141 CA
+$49.75 (credit)
08/11/2007 TWX*Xdrive by AOL 0807 866-GOXDRIV NY
$9.95
Sure – they issued the refund alright.
But then the little bast*rds continued to bill me under a slightly different name with a different contact number.
So now instead of “XDRIVE.COM 703-433-0141 CA” it is “TWX*Xdrive by AOL 0807 866-GOXDRIV NY”.
Finally I get my banks credit card department involved – which I probably should have in the beginning.
While we are on a three way call with someone at XDrive, I semi-politely explain to her that no only do I know they have an “F” rating with the BBB but I am going to complain to the states attorney generals office but also talk to my JAG office to see what they can do about getting AOL/XDrive put on the “banned/barred” list and also tell as many people as I can where ever I go.
I think I may have made the poor girl cry.
So sorry, but the is way past the point of polite.
It’s even past the point where some people just could possibly be pissed enough to come and burn your shiny corporate headquarters down… theoretically… in a movie or something… maybe.
So they refund me another $120 on top of the $49.75 they refunded me last month as well as the $30 they refunded me last summer.
AOL/XDrive will try to screw with you to keep their money.
If you have to deal with them you need to get your bank and CC involved and you need to threaten legal action, (my brother in law is a lawyer and he is a nasty bloodsucking litigator, etc…) and I’m going to complain to every government official I can reach…. etc etc etc…
Good luck.
Not sure who the XDrive\AOL lackey is who wrote the defensive posture letter. Any company that has a respectable customer service track record would post customer service information on their main web page – easily accesable.
Our story. We recieved a letter many months ago saying our XDrive account was cancelled due to credit card problems. This was an instance where my wife was trying out a service to back up some critical corporate data from a mobile laptop.
After recieving this letter we decided to go with another vendor as we did more research and found many dissatisfied customers with AOL\Xdrive. XDrive started charging our account again a month later and my wife did not notice at first.
At this point I ask the XDrive\AOL lackey above how does one cancel an XDrive account? Without knowing our EXACT customer info, password, etc. there was know way to get to customer information. We actually found it through this web site. AOL\XDRIVE make it IMPOSSIBLE to contact ANY HUMAN from the web site unless they already have their hands on your credit card. Then you still need to be able to log in.
Boy you need to grow up and work for a reputable company. I would suggest also if you are to attempt to engage in rhetoric and sophistry that you attempt to refine your points of argument. Most importantly your argument stated how another company was MUCH worse than your company. This is like a murderer saying, “well at least I’m not as bad as Charles Manson.” Ridiculus argument, rather pointless and obviously written by a kid that doesn’t know better.
We all should endeavour to work and do business with corporations that attempt to lead the way in ethical, respectable treatment of customers. Not a company that tries to be one or two steps better than the worst.
I would have to say the two WORST corporations I have ever dealt with are IPOWER and XDRIVE. Disgusting
Stay away from both of these corporations…
thanks so much for the post!! saved me a lot of time and headache to dig around for that 800-number…
X-Drive Cancelation
I needed to use a different approach. When I selected “paid” service, then “billing” I got a recording only in Spanish then a hang up. So select “unpaid” service, then following the dialogue. Select “upgrade” to a paid service and they answer immediately. Then request a cancelation !!
Ugh… more than an hour on the phone to cancel and request a refund of $49.75. FINALLY they agreed to refund me the amount for 2 months of service ($19.95) because “any charges not disputed within 60 days will be considered valid” (that’s why I’m being charged for the first 3 of the 5 months), which is unacceptable. I can’t see paying nearly $50 for a trial account that didn’t even work half the time.
You know, I’m gonna call back and tell them I didn’t dispute 5 months ago BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE CHARGING ME! I could understand if I was receiving a bill of some sort to alert me to cancel the service.
WOW
I finally found the info to cancel AOL/XDRIVEs monthly surcharge. Thanks a million. I got my acct. canceled but will call my bank and make sure things are ok.
WE NEED TO START A BLOG for this on an official site.
Thanks for posting this info – it was easy to cancel once I got that phone number, but searching for the phone number on their site is an exercise in futility.