XM Radio Customer Service Woes

In January of 2008, I purchased a Honda Civic that came with a 3-month trial subscription of XM Satellite Radio. I tried it out, but I was not a major fan because the signal was intermittent. It seemed highly annoying to deal with the constant interruptions of static, so I did not purchase a subscription when my trial ran out.

I occasionally received advertisements in the mail regarding specials they were running. Depending on how long I agreed to have their service, I could get varying percentages off the total cost.

Eventually, I came across a decent deal that I was willing to try for a couple of months because I was going to be doing some traveling and figured I would get a better signal when traveling the Interstates. This was mostly true, except that it would still cut out for a moment when passing under several bridge underpasses.

I decided to call and cancel my subscription, but they were desperate to keep me. I told them I did not want to pay for a service that was annoying to use. They kept tossing more "deals" at me, and I kept refusing. Eventually, they offered me three months for free to continue trying out the service and hopefully resolve my signal issues. I told the person on the phone that I would have no problems with a free trial. I made it clear that I did not want to pay for the service. I was told that, to avoid having the subscription renew at normal price, I would need to call by the end of February (2009) to cancel the subscription. I agreed to this.

For the three months leading up to February, I rarely listened to the radio, because it was highly annoying to have the signal go out so much. Driving around town I would get a lot of static, especially if I was near trees or buildings. You know what we have a lot of in the city? Trees and buildings!

Wanting to avoid getting charged, I decided to call and cancel the subscription yet again. I called XM while on a break at work at used up more than my break time waiting on hold. I kept getting a recording telling me they were experiencing high call volumes due to the high demand of their "Best of Sirius" package. I refuse to believe this for two main reasons. One being the bad service, two being the price of their stock. Regardless, I was forced to hang up and try again later. Therefore, 20 minutes of my time was wasted.

I decided to take a lunch break later in the day. I called XM while driving home to grab some food. Again, I sat on hold for about 20 minutes before someone finally answered the call. They had the same annoying recordings talking about how their new service was in high demand. Yeah, sure.

Finally, someone picked up, and I told them I wanted to cancel my subscription. They asked me why, and I told them the signal was lousy and I could not use the radio. For reasons following logic I cannot quite follow... they then offered me several discounts to use their service. It seemed to be difficult to explain to the customer service rep that I did not want the service at all because it was annoying to use their service.

After several more minutes of back-and-forth discussion, I was eventually able to convince the customer service to cancel my subscription. YAY. This agreement was made on Thursday, February 5th, 2009.

Fast forward to Monday, February 9th, 2009...
I decide to do a quick check of my balances to make sure there has been no weird activity recently. I do this on occasion just because I don't trust the world.
What do I find? I see a charge from XM Radio for their service. It apparently applied on Friday, February 6th, 2009. I found this very annoying, as I had called the day before to cancel the service.

...
So I call XM to check on this issue. Again, I have to sit on hold for a while. For a period of roughly 17 minutes, I have to wait on hold. I finally get someone on the line speaking broken English, and try to explain to them that I was charged for their service despite the fact I had put in a request to cancel the service. I mentioned that wanted to make sure my subscription was canceled and I wanted a refund of the charge. Strangely enough, at that moment, the call connection started to become weak. I find this very strange because it had no problems while I was sitting on hold. After several moments of trying to talk to the customer service rep... the call went dead.

I thought this was very fishy, because my phone had been sitting in the same spot for the duration of the call, so I know it wasn't my end.

I took a moment to ponder the situation before immediately calling back, because I did not want to sound super angry. Then I convinced myself that I would likely have to sit on hold for a while again, and I would have plenty of time to calm down while waiting on hold.

I called back. Luckily, this was the shortest amount of time I had to sit on hold, only about 13 minutes this time. I get in touch with a live person. The English is still a bit broken, but more easy to understand than the previous guy.

I explain to her that I was just talking to someone and got cut off. I then tell her I was calling because I had called last week to cancel my subscription and then was charged a large fee after putting in the request. I wanted this to be checked, and I wanted to get a refund for the errant fee. She says she can help me with that, then states, "but first, I will need to verify your name". At this moment, the call goes dead.

Again, this is highly fishy because I had a perfect connection until the moment I stated I wanted a refund.

XM is testing my patience.

Once again, I called to try to talk to someone. This time I was on hold for 19 minutes. What a way to spend an evening! The person on the line asks if they can help me. I tell them I hope so, because I had already been cut off twice tonight. I then explain that I had called last week to cancel my subscription, but was then charged a large fee. I explained that I wanted verification that my subscription was canceled, and I wanted a refund of the money I charged.

He then asks me to confirm my name. He then confirms my address. He asks how many radios I canceled, and I tell him just one (the only radio I have). He then states that he needs to check some information on my account and puts me on hold. After about 2 additional minutes of holding... the call drops.

Yet again, fishy. I did not lost my signal, the call was terminated by XM.

After being disconnected from XM three times when trying to get a refund, I shall just have to assume that XM IS RUNNING A SCAM. Yes, XM lawyers, I put that in print. Since I have plenty of evidence to suggest this, I have every right to actually print it.

I'll strike you a deal...
Refund my money plus some to cover the cost of time I have wasted talking to your customer service (I figure about $200 should cover it), and issue me a formal apology. When this is done, I shall remove the specific comment above about you running a scam. The other information about your deplorable customer service shall continue to remain unless you strike me an amazing deal. I'm open to suggestions. Keep in mind that I may increase the $200 amount above depending on how much more time I spend dealing with your company trying to get my money back. Also, if you feel compelled to take me up on the "amazing deal to remove negative feedback" offer above, please note that the minimum I will accept will depend on how long you wait to make an offer.

Your's truly,
RMWMP0W4
Former XM Subscriber


******* UPDATE ********

During my fourth attempt this evening at contacting XM, I was finally able to confirm that they are applying a refund to my account. Hurray.

I wonder how many people would have given up and just let XM charge them the money. It still seems sketchy to me that my three previous calls dropped within moments of mentioning that I wanted a refund.

Oh well. I guess patience and persistence pay off.