NASCAR.com can kiss my asterisk.
25 03 2008NASCAR.com marketed their ‘free Trackpass for Speedweeks’ earlier this year. I had subscribed to Trackpass last year and decided to try out some of their new features this year.
Bad idea.
On February 18th, I called 866-722-5299 to cancel my Trackpass subscription. The gentleman I spoke with, Brian, was very nice and had it cancelled for me immediately. Or so I thought.
On March 3rd, the $79.95 was taken out of our bank account. (I had used our checkcard.) My wife called and spoke with Sheena, who explained that there had been an error on the account. She said that the issue had been sent to billing, and they will refund the money, but while it was being looked into, they charged the account. She said that the money should be refunded within 7-10 business days.
On March 19th, I called back because, guess what, no money. Chad was very helpful, explaining that the call was in their escalation tracker, but they did not have enough information in their system to process the refund. He collected the first four and last four digits of my checkcard, along with the expiration date, and said that it should be handled now. He said that if the money was not in there by Tuesday, to call back.
Today’s Tuesday. Guess what? No money. NASCAR.com, a.k.a. Turner Sports Interactive, has had our money for a month now. That’s eighty bucks of money we need.
I called back tonight and spoke with Misty, who was apologetic, but said that this is taking a longer amount of time because they are trying to pull up the account and they are getting invalid information. She apologized for the inconvenience, but said if I can just want a little more time, it would be handled. I explained that I had been waiting over two weeks, and demanded to speak to a manager or someone in the billing department who is supposed to be responsible for this. She said that this was not possible, and explained that the billing department does not take calls, and all she can do is add notes to the ticket.
I was fed up. I told her that I was going to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and hung up.
Since they are obviously not a better business (they have an unsatisfactory record with the BBB), they might not listen, but I have filed a complaint with our local Better Business Bureau. I have also filed a dispute with our bank tonight, and they have given us a provisional credit to our account while they sic their dogs on address the situation with NASCAR.com.
I have been waiting on this company to refund my money for almost a month now–money that they should not have taken out in the first place. Please do yourself a favor and stay away from NASCAR.com, unless you’re prepared to pay. If you take their service for a test drive, be prepared to be taken for a ride.
[...] NASCAR.com can kiss my asterisk. [...]
I HAVE BOUGHT STUFF FROM THE NASCAR.COM STORE AND NEVER HAD ANY TRUBLE WITH THEM
As far as I know, they’re different companies: NASCAR.com is managed by Turner Sports Interactive, and the NASCAR.com Superstore is an entirely different company.
Maybe they need a pit stop. Gas up and put in the alternate driver.
Or maybe the crew chief has been drinking Jack Daniels while he works.
Glad to see you didn’t give up!
Joey
I don’t know if that would work; I’m beginning to wonder if there really IS a billing department, or just a black hole they dump customers into until the customers go away. :)
Trackpass is that expensive?
Trackpass Raceview is. There are different services at different levels. I subscribed to Raceview last year but decided to abandon it this year because it didn’t really seem useful and I didn’t have the money.
Here is my message. Pretty much just like Stephen’s, but one of their billing people called me an “idiot”. No kidding.
To Whom It May Concern,
I have had an unbelievably terrible experience with your company. I wanted to try out one of your Track Pass products, so I purchased the product sometime in early 2007. I found that I didn’t have time to use the product like I thought I might, so I just figured I just wasted $79.95 and a lesson learned. I didn’t want the product anymore, I wasn’t using it.
So to my surprise on February 19th of 2008 a charge was made to my credit card for $79.95 (apparently 2008 automatic renewal), which I did not realize until I received my bill a couple weeks later. I immediately called to find out what the charge was for because I had no idea what it was. I was told it was for the Track Pass product I purchased in 2007, which I did not realize I had agreed to do.
The charge was made to a card I was trying to pay off, so I had the limit lowered several months before this charge was made. The charge put the account over the limit and I was charged $39.
I called and talked with Ashley and told her about my situation and the extra charges I had incurred on my credit card. I wanted to get the product cancelled as well as a refund for the product I had no intention of using. It was maybe a week after the first race of the new season. She apologized about not being able to do anything for me about the over the limit fee I had been charged, however she would issue a credit & refund the $79.95, confirmation #12876884.
I then got my next credit card bill and to my surprise the credit had not been applied and my account was still over the limit, which cost me another $39. I then called and spoke with Shay; nothing was resolved with Shay so I asked to speak to a supervisor and was given to Robert. Robert apologized for the confusion with Ashley and said he would get this taken care of. He gave me confirmation #1290819 and informed me that the credit would take about 14 days to process.
My credit card bill is about to come due again and I went on line to check it. Imagine my surprise again to see that the credit has yet to be applied. I attempted to call you last night (4/15/08) but it was too late in the evening and you were closed.
Today I received a message from an employee of yours by the name of Lydia. When I returned her call she informed me that the credit had been denied. I was shocked as two 2 of your employee’s (one a supervisor) had previously told me I would be receiving a refund.
Of course you can Imagine I was very upset, Lydia was very unsympathetic. She said my request exceeded the 2-week grace period for this credit request. Well first of all let me say, had the credit been applied when Ashley told me it would have been we would have been an entire month earlier. Lydia didn’t care, she was rude. I told her this has already cost me $80 in over the limit fees on my credit card, or course she didn’t care, mater of fact she told me “it is not my problem you can’t take care of your expenses”. She at one point called me an idiot. I had asked her if she thought I was stupid, why would I continue to accumulate over limit fees on my credit card if I wasn’t expecting a credit to be applied by someone from her company that promised it to me. Her reply was, “no, I think you’re an idiot”. I have never been more insulted in my life & it was by one of your employee’s. I have never had someone treat me as poorly as Lydia did. I have never had someone call me an idiot and tell me I don’t know how to handle my expenses.
She just kept quoting to me that it was policy & she really didn’t care. I work for a large customer service company & I understand about policies & why they’re written, but I also know that exceptions can be made when there is truly a disservice done to a customer.
I clearly would have canceled this the day it was charged on my card, but due to the timing of receiving my bill that wasn’t possible. I’m not trying to cheat you out of your money; I just didn’t use the product last year and didn’t know it would automatically be charged this year.
All I wanted was $79.95 refunded to me like the two people from your company previously told me I would receive. The fact that a month went by before I realized I hadn’t received the credit Ashley said would be issued should have been taken into account by Lydia. However, it’s obvious Lydia has no idea what customer service is or how to create a promoter for her company.
Sincerely,
Nick Bazzocco
Nbazz@mchsi.com