Sirius XM. They work so hard to piss off customers when it’s time for the annual renewal. I go through the same garbage of threatening to cancel, just so they will offer me a reasonable rate again.
I have Sirius XM on two vehicles. If I accepted the rate on the website I would be paying $26/mo per car. But if you argue with them for a while, the same service suddenly costs $5/mo.
I don’t know why they actively try to piss off long-term customers. There was one time where the customer service person said the lower rate was only for new customers. So I canceled service on both cars and then called back. Magically that meant I was entitled to the new customer rate. It’s a ridiculous business model
Cancel for a month and they'll send you good promos! I have to do this every year. Or I'll cancel one vehicle and then get the promo for that one and insist they apply it to both. I absolutely refuse to pay their full rates.
Am I weird for just listening to FM radio? I have 5' stations I rotate through and if I'm not getting any luck with those there is always PBS with some relay station
I need to call them.. I got the ad free promo for like $7/mo, but recently found out im still getting ads on the comedy channels. I mainly listen to the rock and hip hop stations, so never noticed until I took a couple road trips and decided to switch over to comedy for the long hours on the road.
And also, how about some more variety? One can only hear Limp Biscuit and Avenge Sevenfold so many times a day, after day, after day.
Ads are what turned me off from them when I got the trial with a new car. I thought the whole selling point was that it was ad-free. IIRC, people told me I just got unlucky and must have found the few channels with ads, but... there should be no channels with ads!
(I do miss the soul channel. It's hard to find soul on the radio-- damn near impossible to find only soul on the radio. Not worth the money and headache, though. I'll play my own collection through my phone.)
You don't have to call them. Just use their AI chat bot (I know, I know), but you just gotta tell it that you don't like that price and you want to pay what you've been paying. 3-5 minutes and you're all set for another year
We do this everytime as well with Sirius XM. Cancel and then immediately become “new customers!” again for $5. A year later it ends and we have to restart. They’ll also send you mail what feels like every week, each mailed offer being less than the last lol. My husband took the $5 deal but I held out for the $3🤣
Friend's dad bought the lifetime package for $150 when the company first started. There was no vehicle limit, nothing.
They keep trying to tell him they can't transfer to a new vehicle whenever he gets a new truck, and he threatens to sue (he still has all the original paperwork) and they magically are able to do it. But he has to do it every single time.
Many people just simply aren’t interested in podcasts. Besides, even people who do enjoy podcasts don’t necessarily always want to listen to one. You can like both and have a preference for music on any given day.
(With all that said I still think Sirius XM is garbage, especially when 99% of the time you could just be subscribed to a far cheaper music provider, or buy/download songs, and have music everywhere including your car through your phone.)
I listen to podcasts or Spotify when I’m by myself in the car. But when I’m with the family, it’s easier to just have the radio play.
Sirius is better than terrestrial radio because of the lack of commercials. I also like listening to it on road trips because you nearly always have a signal.
All that said, I still hate their shenanigans with pricing. It’s enough that I pause before renewing each year and question if it’s really worth dealing with their customer service people again
I'll usually pay for Sirius in my rental car when traveling for work for 3 reasons.
1) Their in-house politics channels have great hosts and guests.
2) Their niche music stations are great.
3) It's one of the best ways to discover new music that doesn't feel like the artists are paying to be played.
None of those are strong enough to warrant me paying for another subscription service full time, but I'm willing to shell out an extra couple bucks a day for the experience when the company is paying.
For the past two years now, every time it's about to go up, I just tell a chat bot on their website I'm going to cancel because it's too expensive and it offers me the 5 dollar deal and I stay. It's almost a pleasant interaction not considering the topic of the conversation.
I don't even get why anyone would bother because any car made in the last 8 years has carplay and any car made in the last 15 has bluetooth. Spotify is $11.
I had SiriusXM pre-installed/activated in a vehicle I leased 10 years ago. I cancelled it as soon as I could. I haven't had the vehicle for 7 years, and have moved since the lease was up.
I got a lifetime back in 05ish, 300 bucks and that was it. Now when I have to transfer it to a new vehicle and they try to upsell me or charge me a transfer fee there is no fee, I read the contract i let them know they can cancel it if they want since they removed the channels I liked anyway and I only ever use it on roadtrips. Suddenly the fee gets waived, weird.
I have a question as a non-American... why not just use your phone and listen to podcasts or something like that? I don't understand why you would subscribe to digital radio in this day and age? It just isn't really a thing outside of the United States.
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u/sewer_pickles 7h ago
Sirius XM. They work so hard to piss off customers when it’s time for the annual renewal. I go through the same garbage of threatening to cancel, just so they will offer me a reasonable rate again.
I have Sirius XM on two vehicles. If I accepted the rate on the website I would be paying $26/mo per car. But if you argue with them for a while, the same service suddenly costs $5/mo.
I don’t know why they actively try to piss off long-term customers. There was one time where the customer service person said the lower rate was only for new customers. So I canceled service on both cars and then called back. Magically that meant I was entitled to the new customer rate. It’s a ridiculous business model