When we purchased our used Saturn we were given six months of OnStar, after that time, we would be charged $x a month to continue the service, which we did.
We have never used OnStar other than to play the information lady so DD would be amused and say “Rockstar Ready” instead of “OnStar Ready.”
Saturday as we were getting ready to head out for the day, I received a phone call from a woman claiming to be from OnStar. She told us that if we renewed over the phone, we could get x% off. She knew our car make and model, our address and the like. All I had to do was confirm our credit card number. Sure. I thought she was going to read it back to me. NO! She wanted ME to give it to HER over the phone! WTF? I asked if I could renew online and she said we could but would not get the discount.
This morning I called OnStar customer no-service, (thanks Clark Howard for that term). Why customer no-service?
Call #1: “Hello this is OnStar. I am Eduardo, how can I help you?” “Hello?” Apparently this ESL, (English as a second language), operator did not have his headset plugged all the way in or something because he could not hear me.
Call #2: I get a very nice lady who listens to me and then asks, “So you want to renew?” No, like I said if you had been listening is that I need to speak to someone about the call I received on Saturday. “I understand,” she says and offers to transfer me to their customer service area. She makes the transfer. After a couple of beeps, the call is dropped.
Call #3: I go through the scenario again and once again got the “I understand” script. This time the call went through. I explained the situation and was told that they DO make these calls, but the woman should have given more information to me to assure her identity. WHAT? I don’t care if she sends me a blood sample and her first born, I am not giving my credit card information on the phone!
Makes me want to dump OnStar.
Another quality product offered by GM.
i have had the same issue with my saturn. sometimes I wonder if its worth it.
And on top of that, someone thought it would be smart to give GM bailout money.
Awesome.
I heard something on the news last night that the gps satellites will be non-functioning by next year. Does that include on-star?
I don’t know about the GPS. However, I will have an update on this issue later.
The recent articles about GPS were pointing out that the military may not have the resources to keep enough satellites up to have good accuracy. I would chock a lot of those stories up to being the military’s way of making sure they get funding.
Curious, but I give my credit card number over the phone all the time, its pretty common place if you ever purchase anything over the phone. Quite frankly, with as many online stores that have had thier credit card numbers stolen, I figure purchasing something over the phone might be a whole lot safer..
Anonymous~
They called me, I did not call them. I do not give my credit card information to anyone I did not solicit myself.
Wow!!! You were right on the ball there. Scammers are sneaky enough, we don’t need businesses to do the same. I hate OnStar, anyway. Hey, have you heard BlondeStar? If not, let me know, it’s hilarious.
I have heard of Blonde Star. Cracks me up!