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Thursday, January 20, 2011

How To Save Money On Sirius/XM

There's some excellent money-saving advice in this for you if you currently are a subscriber to Sirius/XM satellite radio, so pay attention. I've been a Sirius subscriber for a few years (back before they merged with XM). Last year at this time, because of my financial situation, I decided to cancel. I changed my mind when they offered me a year at half-price -- about $80.00 instead of $160.00 (I'm rounding these numbers, by the way). I really like listening to music commercial-free, and I'm not able to get a reliable wi-fi signal in my living room to listen to Internet radio (which I'm listening to right now, since I'm in the basement in front of the computer).

Since things still haven't improved, and when my account statement on their website said I would owe $160.00 for the coming year, I again decided to cancel. I called on Friday. The woman I spoke to offered the $80.00 deal again. I declined. She made another offer, which I didn't hear clearly, but I just turned it down again, not bothering to ask her to repeat it. So she said she would take care of canceling my subscription.

The satellite signal still was coming in to the receiver, though. In the last couple of days I've gotten a number of calls from a toll-free number (my caller ID displayed the number but not the name of the caller). I usually let them go to voice mail unless I know the caller, but last night I decided to pick up. It was a recorded message from Sirius asking if I received my bill, saying I owed $160.00, etc. The woman I spoke to didn't do anything. More customer service incompetence.

So I called back today, and told the guy who answered what happened, and said clearly that I cannot afford it and it has to be canceled. He said he would take care of it, but then repeated the second offer that the woman had made last week: five months for $20.00.

Four dollars per month! That tells me that Sirius/XM is really desperate to keep subscribers. I still turned it down, and the subscription was finally canceled and the signal cut off. It's sad but I had to do it. So if you subscribe to Sirius/XM, just threaten to cancel and say you can't afford it and they'll offer you a nice price break.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've read on numerous websites about getting special deals when threatening to cancel. I called on Dec 28th which was my renewal date and asked for a lower rate or I would cancel. They cancelled me without offering anything. People tell me to be patient and I will get mail or a call or something, but so far I have't received any messages from Serius. Hate "normal" radio, but I'm hanging in to see if something better happens.