XMRadio pricing

Having been a customer of XMRadio since about 2000, I have liked the service, however their customer service hasn’t been the greatest. 2+ years ago when I bought a new car, I transferred my XMRadio subscription from the previous car to the new one. They were upset that the dealership didn’t take care of it, but ended up doing it. Well that subscription was set to expire in 2009. I renewed it in February of 2009 because they had a deal, whereas if you renewed it then, you also got the online service for free for the duration of that renewal. (They were going to start charging for the online stuff the month after I renewed it.) I decided that I would do the 2 year option as I knew I would have the car for at least 2 more years (since I had had it for less than a year).

Well I got my renewal notice in the mail a couple of weeks ago, saying it was going to automatically renew in February of 2011. I didn’t pay close attention to it, till a couple of nights later when I was going through the bills. This is when I got pissed. See when I renewed the service in 2009 for 2 years, it was around $251. Well this renewal noticed said that a 2 year subscription was going to be over $313. Yup $62 more than 2 years ago. Now I bitch about Comcast raising their prices but this was ludicrous. I only listen to it for about 30+ minutes on my drive home every night as I usually listen to Lex and Terry on WCLG on the morning drive to work. This seemed like an excessive amount of money to pay for a service that I usually listen to about 5 songs a day on. So I started contemplating just dropping the service and using the iPod or CD’s instead.

After a while I started looking around and found some sites on the Interweb that said, that Sirrius/XM is so desperate to keep subscribers that if you “threaten” to leave, then they will give you a special deal to keep you as a listener. Well considering that I was considering on leaving them, I decided to see what they would do. So I called them up, and said that I didn’t understand why my bill had gone up so much. Well, part of it is the Online fee, and then there is this little XM Music Royalty Fee. Basically because you get to listen to music with out commercials, you have to pay EXTRA for it? Well this fee on my 2 year bill was over $40. So I told the person on the phone, unless they have a cheaper package, I will have to cancel as this is just getting ridiculous. After a little talking back and forth, she offered up a $77 a year package, which after taxes and this “music royalty fee” would be $79. I told her that was a much better price and that I would take it. She told me that I wouldn’t get the online stuff unless I paid like $20 for it. I told her I didn’t want it as, I did not really have access to use it where I would want to use it.

Then came the funniest part, she asked if she could charge it to the credit card that was on file. I told her “No, I want an invoice in the mail, as you (xm) always try to charge an expired credit card and then proceed to harass me for weeks about not being able to bill me, even after I had paid the bill.” She then replied, “Well we have to charge you $2.00 for sending you a invoice.” WTF is that about? Why should you charge some one $2 to send them a bill? I told her that was fine, as I would rather pay the $2 now then be harassed for days. Then as she is clicking a way on the computer, she said “Oh your radio says you get the internet stuff for free..” I was like “ok, if I don’t have to pay for it.” So I have yet to try to see if I can get the online listening stuff yet. But they did kill my old online account right after I got off the phone with her.

So if you havn’t renewed your Sirius/XM since before June of 2009, be on the look out for the BIG change in pricing.