What made you cancel your SIRIUS or XM subscription?
Customer Service? Lack of Programming you enjoy? Hardware? What made you pull the trigger?
Customer Service? Lack of Programming you enjoy? Hardware? What made you pull the trigger?
What specifically made you cancel an XM or SIRIUS Sub?
- Thread starter TSS Taylor
- Start date
I had canceled long before there was any merger talk. Music Lab, Cross Country and Luna were #1, #2, and #3 on my presets. I lost two of those and Cross Country left not long after. No reason to come back since I don't like shock jocks like Stern and O&A, and everything else is available in other equal or better forms with no additional purchase needed.
I can get more or less the same if not better music from Slacker. My wife has one XM with BOS in her car and I keep one Sirius sub for the home. I canceled the 3rd sub for my Stiletto about 3 months ago. The FINAL straw was the bullshit iphone app Sirius released. I now listen to Slacker exclusively on my iphone in my car and in the gym. Also, "BoomBox" was my most listened to station. When it was removed I needed to find an alternative source of that type of music. Slacker gives me that.
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Now this is what I'm talking about! (If you want my reasons on what got me into it in the first place, the other thread has those.) I'm gonna try to do this in chronological order, but I'm kinda flakey on which one of the first two things happened first. I'm sorry if the sarcastic tone gets to anyone, but it truely bugs me and I'm trying to get that point across. There's also profanity, mainly in the 3rd part, so if that offends you, you might wanna skip to the TL;DR.
1. There was once a channel called Fungus. It was a great channel. They played a mix of new and old punk, and they got the mix just right. IT was one of the original things that brought me to XM. They killed it. To bring back the Boneyard. Which we already have Classic Vinyl and Rewind. Great. I can listen to classic rock on FM, thank you very much.
2. Sirius has a channel called Faction. Faction used to suck. New heavy rock, pop punk, and hip hop, mixed with horrific old punk doesn't work very good. At this time, the only thing that I listened to on Faction was Ellis (also a reason I got Sirius). Then Sirius came out with The Punk Channel, and eliminated that from the Faction rotation. These were Faction's golden years. They played new heavy rock, pop punk, hip hop, and the occasional hard classic rock song. It was awesome. Then Sirius shut the Punk channel off. That doesn't bother me, their punk channel wasn't that great anyways. What to do with the music though? Some idiot in programming must have been like "OHEY LETZ ALL DUMP THIS INTO FACTIN IT KIND OF THE SAME LOLOL". Faction's never been the same. I hear an Ice Cube song (Mind you I liked rap on Faction), a Five Finger Death Punch song, a Weezer song, then some british no talent trash that makes me want to carve my eardrums out with sporks. At least Ellis didn't usually play it.
3. XM customer service seriously has to be the dumbest group of individuals on the face of the planet. As in, they failed second grade math. Follow me for a second, please. I had a radio in my car, and that car's engine decided it wasn't long for this world. So, I get a nice new car. Couldn't find any reasonable way to put XM in it since I didn't want to tear the dash off (it's one piece) and the FM transmitters are USELESS when you have a glass antenna. So I call them up to cancel this radio. All goes well, until I notice I'm being charged $20.99 for XM+BOS. Now, I pay by invoice,*so that explains $2 there. This was before the royalty fee, so that wasn't it either. They were overcharging me $2 on the Best of Sirius line item.
So I give them a call, and get a pleasant person on the phone. He's truely confused, first suggested that it was the invoice fee, but when I told him to look closer, he was like "oh, that's not right." and told me he'd forward to his supe, give me a $2 bill credit, and I'd get a call from them sometime in the week.
Fast forward a couple of days, and I get home and there's a message on my answering machine. This person had the WORST grasp of the English language I have ever heard, and after 5 minutes of trying to decode the message I realize this RETARD is telling me that its ME because I have invoice billing.
I cool off for a couple of days and call them back. I get another person who speaks decent english, and they again admit that something's screwy. They literally try re-creating my XM account, and that still doesn't fix it, so I ask for a supe. They tell me one's not there, and that they'll call me back. Sound familiar?
Same thing five days later, fucking IDIOT calls my answering machine and tells me it's my invoice fee. I'm seriously fed up at this point, and cancel the next month. They offer me 3 free months, which I accept. Turns out that 3 free months in XM language translates into 1 3/4ths of a month of free service. Call them back, cancel the radio, and figure it's all behind me. Mind you I made sure to tell them the ID of the radio being canceled multiple times, and they even read it back to me correctly once.
Dad calls me the next day, said they shut off his service. I head over his house and notice he's only getting 1 and 0, and my XMP3 is still getting everything. So I call them back and get them to change this back over. Turns out for whatever reason they cancelled his radio instead of mine, and refunded the rest of his yearly sub to my account, and I have a credit balance. Arrgh. So I just tell them to switch his back on, just the way it used to be. They do. I get off the phone with them after they try to hard sell me a refurbished radio. His radio comes back on, and it has the BoS. Way to spoil that Christmas present, XM. I just told him that's how it is now and he can listen to Howard Stern, as I'm seriously sick of arguing with these fucks.
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tl;dr: they got rid of Fungus, ruined Faction, and their customer service is staffed by Carribean preschoolers.
1. There was once a channel called Fungus. It was a great channel. They played a mix of new and old punk, and they got the mix just right. IT was one of the original things that brought me to XM. They killed it. To bring back the Boneyard. Which we already have Classic Vinyl and Rewind. Great. I can listen to classic rock on FM, thank you very much.
2. Sirius has a channel called Faction. Faction used to suck. New heavy rock, pop punk, and hip hop, mixed with horrific old punk doesn't work very good. At this time, the only thing that I listened to on Faction was Ellis (also a reason I got Sirius). Then Sirius came out with The Punk Channel, and eliminated that from the Faction rotation. These were Faction's golden years. They played new heavy rock, pop punk, hip hop, and the occasional hard classic rock song. It was awesome. Then Sirius shut the Punk channel off. That doesn't bother me, their punk channel wasn't that great anyways. What to do with the music though? Some idiot in programming must have been like "OHEY LETZ ALL DUMP THIS INTO FACTIN IT KIND OF THE SAME LOLOL". Faction's never been the same. I hear an Ice Cube song (Mind you I liked rap on Faction), a Five Finger Death Punch song, a Weezer song, then some british no talent trash that makes me want to carve my eardrums out with sporks. At least Ellis didn't usually play it.
3. XM customer service seriously has to be the dumbest group of individuals on the face of the planet. As in, they failed second grade math. Follow me for a second, please. I had a radio in my car, and that car's engine decided it wasn't long for this world. So, I get a nice new car. Couldn't find any reasonable way to put XM in it since I didn't want to tear the dash off (it's one piece) and the FM transmitters are USELESS when you have a glass antenna. So I call them up to cancel this radio. All goes well, until I notice I'm being charged $20.99 for XM+BOS. Now, I pay by invoice,*so that explains $2 there. This was before the royalty fee, so that wasn't it either. They were overcharging me $2 on the Best of Sirius line item.
So I give them a call, and get a pleasant person on the phone. He's truely confused, first suggested that it was the invoice fee, but when I told him to look closer, he was like "oh, that's not right." and told me he'd forward to his supe, give me a $2 bill credit, and I'd get a call from them sometime in the week.
Fast forward a couple of days, and I get home and there's a message on my answering machine. This person had the WORST grasp of the English language I have ever heard, and after 5 minutes of trying to decode the message I realize this RETARD is telling me that its ME because I have invoice billing.
I cool off for a couple of days and call them back. I get another person who speaks decent english, and they again admit that something's screwy. They literally try re-creating my XM account, and that still doesn't fix it, so I ask for a supe. They tell me one's not there, and that they'll call me back. Sound familiar?
Same thing five days later, fucking IDIOT calls my answering machine and tells me it's my invoice fee. I'm seriously fed up at this point, and cancel the next month. They offer me 3 free months, which I accept. Turns out that 3 free months in XM language translates into 1 3/4ths of a month of free service. Call them back, cancel the radio, and figure it's all behind me. Mind you I made sure to tell them the ID of the radio being canceled multiple times, and they even read it back to me correctly once.
Dad calls me the next day, said they shut off his service. I head over his house and notice he's only getting 1 and 0, and my XMP3 is still getting everything. So I call them back and get them to change this back over. Turns out for whatever reason they cancelled his radio instead of mine, and refunded the rest of his yearly sub to my account, and I have a credit balance. Arrgh. So I just tell them to switch his back on, just the way it used to be. They do. I get off the phone with them after they try to hard sell me a refurbished radio. His radio comes back on, and it has the BoS. Way to spoil that Christmas present, XM. I just told him that's how it is now and he can listen to Howard Stern, as I'm seriously sick of arguing with these fucks.
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tl;dr: they got rid of Fungus, ruined Faction, and their customer service is staffed by Carribean preschoolers.
What's wrong with the iPhone app? Is it one of those "hoo-hoo, I'm too good to re-neg my contract so I'll just make them take me off it" situations?
Pretty much. Everything short of the games are on it, the actual sports talk channels including ESPN Radio (last I checked) is there. Howard isn't.
I had a 4th sub (SkyFi2) that I cancelled after a friend used it for awhile. I was actually going to keep it but after they started charging music royalty fees etc, I cancelled.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
I kept my first Airware to listen at work and in my old cars. Once I no longer had those cars, and hooked up my SL2 in the office, I was not really listening to my Airware anymore. I kept it about 6 months for 'sentimentality' but eventually decided that $6.99/mo could be saved. So I cancelled it.
I guess technically I have cancelled the Airware from XM Canada to subscribe to XM-USA. And I have cancelled a Roady XT to transfer the sub to my new car's built in XM (XM Canada again) but those were was more a transfer than a cancellation.
I guess technically I have cancelled the Airware from XM Canada to subscribe to XM-USA. And I have cancelled a Roady XT to transfer the sub to my new car's built in XM (XM Canada again) but those were was more a transfer than a cancellation.
I don't know if this counts but when they started charging extra for the internet connection, my Shitster (I mean Sportster) stopped working around the same time so I cancelled the radio and kept the internet. I usually just download the shows I like via Replay AV and play them back on the iPod in the car or at home when I want.
However, the main reason I cancelled was not the broken radio or money, but Sirius/ XM's best kept secret: many people like me just can't get a good signal 24/7 if they live in the wrong neighborhood. I would bring my radio with the home dock to work and office reception was fantastic thanks to the repeater, but in my apartment with that piece of shit antenna hanging out the window, too many annoying drop-outs, especially at certain times of the day. It used to frustrate the shit out of me. No mas. The only thing that sucks is I miss the music channels in the car, since I'm not inclined to download segments of the music channels.
However, the main reason I cancelled was not the broken radio or money, but Sirius/ XM's best kept secret: many people like me just can't get a good signal 24/7 if they live in the wrong neighborhood. I would bring my radio with the home dock to work and office reception was fantastic thanks to the repeater, but in my apartment with that piece of shit antenna hanging out the window, too many annoying drop-outs, especially at certain times of the day. It used to frustrate the shit out of me. No mas. The only thing that sucks is I miss the music channels in the car, since I'm not inclined to download segments of the music channels.
The Signal is a lot better for SIRIUS with the new Satellite. Let me know if you want a replacement Shitster. I will help you out with that. Or a new PowerConnect radio.
Thank you, I have heard that some people are getting better reception these days. I'll probably give you a holler around payday....
Sirius and XM and then Sirius XM merged has made many, many changes in the years I've been a subscriber. Before PNP's if you wanted sat radio in your cars or your home, you had to get multiple subscriptions and multiple pieces of equipment. I use to have 3 or 4 of them. However as the hardware got better with XM first, I was finally able to start cutting back on subs. So most of my cancellations were due to just not having a need for the subs. Eventually Sirius finally got into PNP's and of course I was able to cancel subs with them too. I finally got to having one XM and one Sirius sub, which I kept for years until the merger.
Once the merger happen I just didn't feel the need to have both services since the music channels which is my main reason for having the service to begin with was pretty much the same. However, upon close inspection of what each service offered and the equipment available I opted to cancel Sirius and stay with XM. I think the XpressRC was better than any PNP Sirius has ever put out. Heck I still feel that way today! I mainly felt this was because where I lived reception was better on XM and that freaking bright beautiful full color display... Sirius has nothing like it, still don't! I also found that XM had more music channels and some of the sports I liked the best, then just by seasonally adding the BOS for 5 months out of the year I can get my NFL. Once the season is over I'll drop the BOS again.
Anyway... I've never really had problems with customer service on either side. I never really had equipment problems and LORD knows I had tons of various radios over the years, but I'll buy a new one and sell the old one because I love having new toys. I know prices have gone up and channels have changed and not always for the best. However, I just never found anything that even with all those changes that could REALLY equal the service in terms of music, entertainment, sports etc. I think many people get on rip and tear about this stuff and they cancel based on principle and I am just not about that at all. I don't understand stopping a service which I really enjoy based on that sort of thinking. Those who do power to them!
Today I only have one subscription and it goes wherever I go either by moving my Skydock from my business car to my personal car or by listening via the streaming application on my iPhone. I feel I have the best setup I've ever had and I am happy with the service.
Once the merger happen I just didn't feel the need to have both services since the music channels which is my main reason for having the service to begin with was pretty much the same. However, upon close inspection of what each service offered and the equipment available I opted to cancel Sirius and stay with XM. I think the XpressRC was better than any PNP Sirius has ever put out. Heck I still feel that way today! I mainly felt this was because where I lived reception was better on XM and that freaking bright beautiful full color display... Sirius has nothing like it, still don't! I also found that XM had more music channels and some of the sports I liked the best, then just by seasonally adding the BOS for 5 months out of the year I can get my NFL. Once the season is over I'll drop the BOS again.
Anyway... I've never really had problems with customer service on either side. I never really had equipment problems and LORD knows I had tons of various radios over the years, but I'll buy a new one and sell the old one because I love having new toys. I know prices have gone up and channels have changed and not always for the best. However, I just never found anything that even with all those changes that could REALLY equal the service in terms of music, entertainment, sports etc. I think many people get on rip and tear about this stuff and they cancel based on principle and I am just not about that at all. I don't understand stopping a service which I really enjoy based on that sort of thinking. Those who do power to them!
Today I only have one subscription and it goes wherever I go either by moving my Skydock from my business car to my personal car or by listening via the streaming application on my iPhone. I feel I have the best setup I've ever had and I am happy with the service.
I think snakester's point was that the problem with the iPhone App IS HOWARD and his outrageous need to squeeze every fucking penny he can out of Sirius. I was and still am amazed how many of you gave him a pass on this. The fact is I am sure SIRIUS wanted him on that App.
Personally I could give 2 shits that he isn't on the App, it works for me with or without him. None the less 2 other applications that have nothing to do with Sirius stream his show on the iPhone every day! Yet Sirius doesn't go after them or try to stop them from doing so. That says a lot to me!
Once they got the online streaming working, I no longer needed a complicated set up in my house with ECHO repeaters and the like. Then my family got cars with XM in the dash, so then PNPs were completely unnecessary.
However, I have recently decided that the fun of satrad mostly comes from playing with the PNPs along with the service itself. I needed a PNP for rental cars in my new job, so I had Tom hook me up with an XMP3. It's a funky little recording unit, but it puts out great sound for music.
However, I have recently decided that the fun of satrad mostly comes from playing with the PNPs along with the service itself. I needed a PNP for rental cars in my new job, so I had Tom hook me up with an XMP3. It's a funky little recording unit, but it puts out great sound for music.
I canceled because of the ever increasing prices (plus charging for internet streaming) along with the continued "best of Sirius/xm" scam that's still running a year after the merger.
I've never cancelled a sub. I've added a sub, I've added premium internet, I've done SID swaps but I've never cancelled.
Actually, I think I've only called to complain 2 times. My SL2 died on me when I was about 5 hours away from home (I called and went ballistic and got a new one sent to me) and I called to complain after the merger when they were censoring the music channels.
This is all. I mean, I turn on the radio and it works--why would I cancel. I've never had widespread problems with Hardware--I was one of the lucky S50 owners that NEVER had a problem--and I can still afford the service so I really have no reason to cancel.
Actually, I think I've only called to complain 2 times. My SL2 died on me when I was about 5 hours away from home (I called and went ballistic and got a new one sent to me) and I called to complain after the merger when they were censoring the music channels.
This is all. I mean, I turn on the radio and it works--why would I cancel. I've never had widespread problems with Hardware--I was one of the lucky S50 owners that NEVER had a problem--and I can still afford the service so I really have no reason to cancel.
I cancelled due to;
Poor reception. (Just a few more seconds of caching would have eliminated most of my drop outs- or a sirius bird in the Clark belt- whoops too late!)
Shallow play lists.
Oh, yeah and one other thing...
SINGLE ARTIST CHANNELS!
Poor reception. (Just a few more seconds of caching would have eliminated most of my drop outs- or a sirius bird in the Clark belt- whoops too late!)
Shallow play lists.
Oh, yeah and one other thing...
SINGLE ARTIST CHANNELS!
Oh, I do hate the Single ARtist Channels but thankfully, when they do these they never interfere with a channel that I listen to anyway.
-But if they weren't sucking the bandwidth we could listen to a larger variety of artists on more channels.
I can not for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to pay for multiple channels that only plays one frigging artist 24/7...
This is why i liked the idea of a la carte, they could see what channels folks were actually willing to pay for. Its a shame (actually more of a sham...) they decided not to market the a la carte plan.