Sirius has the friggin' WORST customer service I have ever encountered. They've pissed me off before.. and managed to do it once again today!

In '03 after I bought this truck I bought a Kenwood aftermarket head-unit w/ MP3 support. At the time they were running a promo where I got a free Sirius receiver kit for it. This is the built-in, head-unit controlled type where you slip a box under the seat and plug it in via the deck's CD changer control port. I subscribed w/ my credit card for 1 year to try it out. After the 1st year I was charged to re-up w/o any notice. I did not receive an invoice mentioning the charge, I did not receive an email alerting me that it was comming, and I most certianly had no way to cancel. It turns out that this is their policy and was 'clearly' mentioned in their leagal-ese subscription agreement.. basically I was told, but it was burried in the fine print.

No biggie, I liked the service and intended to keep it anyhow. It is there in black and white. My fault for not reading it closely enough. Not like I can do much about it anyway.

Fast forward another year. I have bought my GF a new plug and play receiver. We have a home-dock for it inside and another in her car. It works great and is better than my Kenwood setup in so many ways. I decide that I'm going to not renew my subscription this year on my Kenwood. In a few months or so I might go for a PNP receiver for myself. (I have since purchased the receiver but not activated it yet. I simply don't use the service that much.)

At any rate, I call up, explain I'd like to cancel the Kenwood and keep the Audiovox PNP unit. I have receiver ID #s for both. I explain I would like to just get off the auto-renew program and let the Kenwood subscription just run out. No problem they say. I think I'm done..

2 weeks later I get nailed w/ a $150 charge on my CC! Whoa! Turns out the woman I talked to (who barely spoke english) either misunderstood me or just plain didn't do what I asked. My account had renewed for another year automatically. I calmly told them it was a mistake and to please deactivate it and refund my CC. "Sure, no problem, but there will be a $75 early cancelation fee!" .... That's about where I blew a gasket!

After an hour of nasty language, talking to at least 3 different 'reps' I managed to get the 'cancelation' fee waived. They still stuck me w/ a pro-rated fee for the weeks worth of time I'd already used on the account I thought I had canceled. (I had not turned on the receiver once since I had thought I canceled it BTW. Not once!) I was out $6-8. Not the end of the world, I decided to roll w/ it.

Fast forward once again to today. GF's account is about to expire. I have to call to renew it at some point. Last weekend I lost my wallet and am w/o my CCs and such. I am waiting for replacement cards to get mailed out to me. But I still have at least two weeks.. I know I just checked the other day. So imagine my shock when Bri calls me today and asks why her Sirius turned off today! I say I dunno, but will figure it out.. I try to log in.. nothing. Maybe I forgot my password, click the 'forgot my password' link.. nothing. Call customer service it says. Okay. I wade through the holding pattern and finally get hooked up w/ this flaming jackass of a guy who informs me that I called this AM to cancel the account... I did what? I don't think so. "No, it says right here you called at 9:38 to cancel. It says 'He said he just doesn't use it anymore.'" ... I did what?

We argue, he continues to be a flamer, I get nowhere. He insists that someone that knew all of my account information called this AM and cancled the account. Not like they scan your fingerprint or anything like that. If you know someone's full-name, home address, and telephone number you are 'in'. He says he needs my receivers ID number to reactivate it, and then we can discuss the charges. Ultra sophisticated company that Sirius is they can't look in the records from before 9 AM this morning to see what the ID number on the radio that was active was. ... And these guys launched a satellite?!

Fine.. I give up. I call Bri, get her to read me the ID number and call back. Wade back through the holding pattern and get a woman that speaks so softly I can barely hear her. I give her my story and the radio ID number. She says "That ID has never been on your account! I show two other IDs, both were deactivated; neither matches the number you just read me" Uh, what? Meaning the radio that was active and on my account at 9:30 this morning was never actually on my account?! Funny, it's been receiving programming for almost a year. "You know, I don't really know what's going on here." She says. (Nooooo, really?! Say it isn't so!) "Let me transfer you to the retention dept. Hang on." ..Sure no problem. I live to listen to musak while on hold.

Then the line goes dead..

Sigh, this sucks!

 

That does suck. They've always been really easy for us. Although i guess new accounts/losin accounts/etc is harder to deal with than what we've had to talk to them about.

Hey, do they play sirius music while you're on hold?

 

WOW thats rare, I have never had any issues with them at all.

 

I don't know what's going on this time around thats just craziness

I know you already admitted your bad about the first thing but I just gotta say this. It's not some crazy Sirius policy to renew after your freebie subscription. Every company in America that offers a free term of service as a trial works off of this same policy. I never jump on anything that offers a free trial, because they purposely make it near impossible to cancel after that trial period. They trust ( with good reason) that most of us are rich enough to afford the future service and too lazy to go through the hassle of ending it.

I'm sure your experience with this will make you double check in the future, but I just wanted to make sure you and anyone who reads this is aware that every business runs this way from Blockbuster-Sports Illustrated-Sirius-CaptainStabbin.com so don't get dooped again!

 

this is my Main problem, you can't hear them ****ers

 

there full of crap with the 75 early termination fee...You just get prorated refund.

 

haha you look up too much ****! And sadly i know that!

Aaron

 

You need to get over you and **** commets, Startin to sound gay

 

werd

 

 

dude that sucks you just ended up being one of the few people who has a big problem with them. i have never heard of that happening to anyone before. that sucks

 

that sucks.

i just signed up today for the first time, and listened to it for several hours on my drive home. i enjoyed it.

 

I cancelled my service as few weeks ago. My CC on file expired, so I tried to update my billing info on their site in February. They told me to call their 800 number.
I callled, made a payment, and updated my information about my CC in February...

Get a notice in March that my CC is expired, call again, make a payment, update info.
Get a notice in April that my CC is expired, call again, make a payment, update info.
Get a notice in May that my CC is expired, call again, make a payment, update info.

Get a notice in June that my CC is expired, call again, make a payment, cancel service.

 

im thinkin about swapping from XM radio to sirus....

i think there is better channels on sirus can yall agree?

 

I wouldn't know since i never had XM, but I'm really happy with Sirius. I had a problem with the antenna cutting out, but Crutchfield is sending me a new model soon.

 

Dude I am sorry to hear of what happened with Sirius. I don't know anyone personally who has it so i can't say much for myself.

I've been doing alot of research about sirius as I want to get it when i go to upgrade the audio system in my next truck. -Mike-

 

Yes they do, but the audio quality is very bad and you (obviously) do not get to pick the channel. The end result was that it was basically muzak.
I wasn't on a 'free' trial subscription. I was on a 1-year PAID subscription. The subscription re-upped at nearly $150 w/o warning. No invoice, no email, no warning at all. I'm not complaining about the re-up, I'm not complaining about the rate, and I'm not complaining about the policy. I'm complaining that there was ZERO WARNING! I'm not made of money and a $150 hit is a fairly substantial one. I need to know it is comming BEFORE I get the credit card bill so that I can budget for it. I don't think an invoice, either paper or electronic, is asking for too much..

Also their policy is clearly designed to make it near-impossible to cancel your subscription w/o paying their 'early' cancelation fee. I totally understand why they do it, but it is BS!
In the end I did.. although it took a lot of foul language.

At any rate, I got my latest situation resolved..

Saturday I sat down w/ all three receivers I have ever owned.. so I had the IDs for each radio handy and called them back. Did the song and dance and managed to blow through the first tier of customer service people fairly quickly.. and onto a woman that seemed to have her *** and her head wired together. She did her thing and we eventually got GF's radio re-activated.. although I'm on the hook for another year's subscription. Basically what she did is re-up me, waive the new subscription fee, and apply the (very small) credit I had on my account to the new subscription. I'm not extatic about the solution, but it will work.

This rep was actually decent. I mentioned the problems I'd been having and she gave me her personal extension. I now have her extension and work schedule written down.. I'll be dealing w/ her exclusively from now on.

I have bought myself a PNP style receiver to replace the hard-wired one I had in the truck. Needless to say I will wait for the dust to settle after this fiasco before daring to activate it.