I'll Never Subscribe To XM/Sirius Radio Again

Never, never, never.

Because of their cancellation process. What a terrible experience.

I've been an XM Radio subscriber for five years or more. But when I called to cancel it was like I was dirt under their feet.

You get one person, who wants your account number, name, address, and email address. OK, fine. Now I want to cancel. OK, instead of canceling your subscription, I need to transfer you to someone else. Then the next person wants your account number, name, address, and email address, and the reason you're calling. So if you're keeping track, this is two people who needed the same information. Meaning one of them is extraneous.

The second person is the one they've got there to talk you out of it. Why are you canceling? Is there anything we could do to keep this radio hooked up? We have a special that is so many months for this amount. From there it went downhill. I'm usually the nicest person in the world, but when a rude phone person comes on acting like it's a personal issue for them whether I'm using my radio, when I want the cancellation to take place, etc., I take exception.

In my case, I stated when I wanted the cancellation to take place, i.e., at the end of my subscription. Sound reasonable enough, right? The customer's always right. The customer's paid, he ought to have his account end when he wants it to end. No, that would be a mistake. The phone person knows best! And she's there to argue the point, inexplicably.

Really, why piss off your customers? Is this really that great for business, to leave a bad taste in your customers' mouth? Bleahhh!

Finally, I guess I got the phone person to realize that I'm the guy with the account, that I ought to be able to say what I want and what I'm paying for. But she definitely wasn't happy with it!

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" I asked for her supervisor, telling her she was very rude. But I couldn't talk to the supervisor because the supervisor's on the phone. (Yeah, likely story). I said I'd hold, but she said I couldn't hold because this phone call is ending ... right ... now ...

Looking on the internet, I see that others have had perhaps worse experiences than I. I don't know 100% that my subscription actually is canceled. But I guess I'll have to check back and hope I get a nicer person.

One thing I know for certain -- 100% -- is that if this is the way XM/Sirius handles "Listener Care," that they've lost at least one listener forever. No more. I don't recommend XM/Sirius for anyone. Listen to your iPod instead.

The service sucked after they merged anyway. They took away the channels I liked and added a bunch of garbage channels in their place. But it was a lot of fun at first. We enjoyed it at first.

(They said they might record the call for "quality assurances" or something. I hope they did. Listen to it. If that's the way you treat customers, don't be surprised when they don't come around again. Idiots.)