I have had XM Satellite radio for about two years. Every few months, they randomly shut my service off. Recently, due to my upcoming deployment to Iraq, I asked them to schedule an automatic shut off of the service on a certain date. Sounds simple, but not for the people at XM.
It took about half an hour to (I thought) get my request across to them. Finally, I felt reasonably confident that the semi-literate customer service rep I was talking too understood what I wanted. The date I requested was about two months from the day of the conversation.
The next day, my radio was deactivated. When this happens, the only channel that can be heard is the preview channel. Since I’m a big fan of talk radio and I commute a long distance twice daily, this is very frustrating. It destroys my routine, and makes a long drive even longer.
I spent several hours over the next week trying to get my radio turned back on. Keep in mind that I’ve been having similar problems for two years, where my service is erroneously shut off and I have to call five or six times to get it turned back on again. Each time, it’s like I’ve never called before. XM seems to lack any coherence at all when it comes to basic help desk policies. They don’t generate a case ID when you call in and they have no idea what the concept of case notes involves. They can’t tell me who I’ve talked to and about half of them speak garbled English that’s nearly impossible to comprehend.
It’s also infuriating to have to repeat mind numbing crap like your home address, phone number and penis size every time you get transferred to another phone rep.
Anyhow, after 10 days and wasted hours of phone time, one of the reps I was speaking asked me for my radio ID. I gave it to him and he mentioned that the radio they had been trying to reactivate was not a match. Idiots.
Buyer beware: if you’re considering purchasing XM satellite radio, I highly recommend against it, unless they have a show that you simply must listen too which isn’t available elsewhere.