Please, Not Again!

I just realized that I am going to have to call SiriusXM customer support.  After my last horrible customer service experience with them, I am less than eager to go another round, but with the purchase of the Flex it will be inevitable since I have to deactivate the XM receiver in the Avalanche (which I no longer have) and somehow get the Flex’s Sirius receiver put on the account.  My research so far on this topic is extremely discouraging.  It seems that despite “merging” the two companies, the billing still runs as separate entities.  Which means that if you have an account with XM, you can’t put a Sirius radio on it (and vice versa).  It appears that you have to open a new account for the Sirius radio and cancel the XM account.

And to put the icing on the cake, the latest online buzz (via forums and Facebook) is that SiriusXM phone support has a serious theft problem.  The reps are under such intense pressure to sell you additional equipment or services that they will often add additional billing or equipment to your account that you did not authorize.  There are numerous complaints from people who called to cancel or change service who ended up being billed for things they did not authorize.

I’ve submitted a question via their email page, to see if what I want will be remotely possible (there are also hints online that they will really merge their operations “real soon now”).  But I am not holding my breath waiting for an answer.

Update: They got back to me a day later (not too bad), but the answer was as I expected: you cannot put a Sirius radio on an “XM account” and vice versa.  So this morning I girded for battle and dialed their so-called “Customer Care” number.  After 45 minutes, two transfers and two hang-ups, I finally succeeded on the third try in canceling the XM radio account I’ve had for the last 9 years.  Or at least that’s what I was told.  I will anxiously await the “7 to 10 business days” they claim it takes for the refund to make it back to my credit card to verify that it actually happened.  For now, I’ve got a free trial of  Sirius in the Flex, so my satellite radio needs are being met.  But I am dreading the day when I have to become a subscriber again.

Which is really sad, because when it comes to the actual service, it works fine when all the equipment is functioning.  It’s only when you have to contact customer service that the company fails so miserably.  Really, isn’t it a crappy reflection of their customer service that it took 45 minutes and getting hung up on twice to do something as simple as cancel an account?  Further, isn’t it even more crappy that the supposedly “merged” company can’t mix the two “accounts?”  If they weren’t so shabbily run, I wouldn’t have had to cancel an 9-year-old account just to change radios on my end.

Frankly, if I could find some way to reliably get “fresh” music (I quickly tire of using an iPod or other device), that had good customer service, I’d jump on it.

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