If I ever buy a car that has XM standard, that puppy is getting ripped out first thing. So I bought a new truck at the beginning of the year that had a radio with XM come pre-installed. Didn’t really think I’d use and guess what… I was right. It had a three month trial period, so I just let it be. Fine. Now I get a bill in the mail a couple days ago for $20. Eh? I didn’t subscribe, so I call to cancel.
Call 1:
<insert automated menus>
wait 6 minutes in complete silence for nothing. No human. No menu. Nothing. Oblivion.
Motherfucker.
<hangup>
Call 2:
<insert automated menus>
Get connected to a guy to whom I explain my situation. He transfers me to someone else to cancel the account.
Get connected to a woman who must have been sitting in a bus terminal considering the amount of noise in the background.
I explain my situation… that I want to cancel.
… but I can sign you up for 3 months at a discounted rate.
I just want to cancel.
… but I can give you a free month. I’m sure you’ll find something you like.
I just want to cancel.
<fucking bitch hangs up on me>
Did that really just happen?!
Call 3:
<insert automated menus>
Get connected to another guy and explain my situation.
He informs me the account has been cancelled and I don’t have to do anything.
Gee… Thanks.
DID THAT REALLY TAKE 3 CALLS?!
Jeeze, what an escapade. I liked the part where the android woman tried every trick in the book to keep you from canceling, then when you refused to take any of the bait, she hung up. Shameless! (Sounds like she did actually cancel your account though, if the guy from call #3 is to be believed…but honestly, they make it HARD to believe anything they tell you!)
Sadly this is how many big consumer-facing corps are geared these days; put the burden on the consumer for as much as possible. Essentially your purchase of the Silverado was your “subscription” to XM — the onus gets put on you to opt-out of it, rather than call them to opt-in. Usually you see this in businesses where they know no one would ever opt-in by choice. ;)
Reminds me of our favorite high school and the bastard trick they pulled on me with the alumni directory. I don’t have Word 1 with them in five years and out of the blue they drop a package at my door. I open it; it’s an alumni directory. So I figure my mom bought it and sent it to me as a joke.
Only when I got the collections notice in the mail did I realize what they’d done — sent me something I didn’t order, which I couldn’t identify until I opened it, and then billed me for it, saying, “Well, you opened it!”
A more perfect demonstration of their epic asshattery would have been impossible.
Glad you finally got XM put in the circular file where it belongs, though. We tried it too; the sound quality was like a 48K MP3, worse if you didn’t listen to one of the first 10 “banner” channels. Eventually we just let it expire.