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Hello. My OnStar process has been nothing but painful and aggravating. Below are the details but in short, I'm not sure how you can gain customers with such awful on boarding processes and lack of customer service. I was excited to actually buy OnStar services with my new vehicle but after all of this I'm second guessing that decision. I called on March 14 to activate with blue button from dealer parking lot. For some reason, I was disconnected so I pressed the blue button again. At this point I was told there was a problem with the account but the agent would resend signals. Then I was told things were ready and working and was sent vehicle diagnostics report via email. I pushed the blue button again to test the service and was sent to activations AGAIN. I informed the agent of my troubles and she said she needed to call my cell phone. When she did she told me to press the blue button again. I assumed it would ring the same agent I had on my cell phone but it went to a new agent. I now had two OnStar agents on two different calls telling me two totally different things! Very unorganized and frustrating! I had to tell the blue button agent to hold on while I listened to the agent on my cell phone and vice versa. In the end the agent on my cell phone said that things were active and done and I should just hang up with the blue button agent.
On March 16 I was sent an email to complete setup for truck's OnStar by clicking a link to create online account. I clicked link and entered account information but got error saying I needed to call OnStar. I pressed blue button and was told the agent didn't know what was wrong and a ticket needed to be created for tech support to fix the problem. Was told I'd hear from someone in 7-10 days! That's ridiculous! Would it take this long for an ambulance to arrive if I was in an accident?!
On March 21 pressed blue button to have nav directions sent to my truck but I was told there was told problem with account and the ticket would resolve it. Again, I was told that I would hear from someone in 7-10 days. At this point, I asked agent if this time spent not being able to use OnStar was going against my 3 months free and that I wasn't impressed or compelled to pay for service so far. He said I would get an additional month free for troubles.
I again pressed blue button on March 23 and was told problem was fixed. Why was there no call or email to inform me that the issue was resolved? I then opened the original email again and clicked link in email and was able to create account and login to the OnStar app on my phone. The agent sent an activation signal AGAIN. Once the signal was complete I tried unlocking doors with agent on the phone but the unlock failed multiple times and the app could not pull down diagnostic report. When I let the agent know, she said she had to send two updates over a 20 minute period to the truck to work with the app. Once the updates completed the app functions were still not working but the agent said it would take some time to work. After several more failed attempts the app finally unlocked the doors, remote start worked, and diagnostics were pulled into app. I then asked agent about the additional month free and she agreed and tried to apply but instead transferred me to another agent due to error when applying additional month free. The next agent was able to add the additional free month and we hung up.
I then pressed blue button again to ensure directions/nav was working. When pressing blue button I was immediately sent to activations agent. I couldn't imagine why I'd go back to activations again since I have already gotten things to work and was ensured everything was ready to go. I asked for directions to be sent to the truck and the agent transferred me to correct agent who sent directions successfully. I then hung up with the agent and cancelled the route through the radio in the truck and tested sending directions from app. This worked as well at this point.
On the morning of March 24 opened app to remote start truck. Upon opening the app it failed to login saying, "Please contact an OnStar Advisor to verify account setup. (403_1)" About 10 minutes later I went out to truck to use remote to start from the keyless remote but it didn't work! The lights flashed but the truck would not start. Lock and unlock worked fine from the remote. At this point, I got in truck and started it with the key. Once it was running OnStar said directions were downloaded to destination from previous night's test. I again cancelled route inside truck from the radio, turned truck off and tested app again. I still saw the same error. With the truck still off I tested remote start from remote and it worked this time. Whatever happened with OnStar the night before was not allowing me to remote start the truck even using the keyless remote locally! I then pressed blue button as instructed by app error 15 minutes earlier. I was about 6:30 AM and the automated message told me OnStar is not open until 7am so I waited and pressed blue button at 7am and was directed to "reactivation" department! I am still not sure why the system worked fine the night before and now I was sent to the activations department again. Frustrating to say the least! Once I got an activations agent on the phone she informed me that service was discontinued! I told agent what happened to date and they said they would reactivate AGAIN and provide me with one month of free service, total. At this point I informed agent that I was supposed to have a total of 4 months due to having purchased a new vehicle and the extra month was for the headaches I've been through in the last week and a half. The agent then said, "Oh yeah. That's correct." After all this running around in circles I didn't have time to sit through ANOTHER activation since I had to go into work so I asked to have notes added to my account so when I pressed the blue button after work the next agent would know of my issues and know how to help.. After expressing my anger the agent suggested calling to talk to loyalty department later to try and keep me as a customer in the future.
Later in the day I called OnStar from my cell phone and was told I shut my service off because OnStar doesn't proactively do it without the customer saying to do so! This is outrageous! The service worked fine the night before. I went to bed and when I woke up it was no longer active! I did nothing to shut services off for my vehicle and didn't even call in over night so how can the agent accuse ME of shutting off my service? Also, WHY would they say that knowing that I've been trying to get things working over the past week and a half? I asked, but the agent would not let me talk to loyalty department and said service wasn't open yet. She said to call back in an hour.
Overall, I'm done trying to get it though the agents heads that I have a problem. I JUST WANT MY SERVICE TO WORK! As I said, I was excited to have OnStar and excited to test it for three months. I already made plans with my wife to activate the service long term and PAY after the three (now four) months of free service were up but as of today, I will NOT continue service. OnStar is there for customer's peace of mind in an emergency situation but if you can't get things going out of the gate how can I trust that you'll protect my family in an emergency?!
I expect a response and resolution to this mess quickly. I am going on a long drive from Pennsylvania to North Carolina on Thursday morning returning next Monday and expect you to get things working reliably and long term before we leave Thursday. I also expect to be compensated more than four months for these troubles. Thank you.


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