[blackraven456]

Wow, so I was looking through my Sirius pamplet and it says that along with my free 6 month trial I can get free online listening access too, but I have to call up their customer service line and request it. So I did and got some dude in India (I think) named Willy...lol riiiight, that didn't speak even a hint of understandable english who wouldn't even let me tell him I didn't want to pay for anything yet. He just kept referring me to online, so I went there and tried to sign up and low and behold it wants money up front to activate an account. I don't even know if I want the thing, that's the whole point of a trial. The whole process was so retarded I don't even think I want to even attempt it anymore. Supposedly they have offers for ford buyers that are only good if you call up and ask before the trial is out, but how can I do that if they won't even talk to me? [???]

I think I might stick with my zune.

 

[scottjl]

I agree, their CS is kind of clueless and hard to deal with, but I sort of made off with a nice deal so I can't complain too much. I called when I got the vehicle to register. I was told my radio had been registered in May! Amazing, since I received the vehicle in August and it wasn't built until June. She said I had only 3 months left but would extend it to give me 6 months. Later I received a notice in the mail that my subscription ran through August 2012. I guess they are as good at math as they are with everything else, I'm not going to complain about a free year, but I won't be renewing after that.

 

[SkyPilot]

agreed their customer service SUCKS! I had an add on unit, after a week or 2 i was over it and wanted to return it. made the phone call to india, they kept offering me free or discounted programing, while this is nice to not have to pay for it, i think it took maybe 20 min of me saying NO i don't want any discounts or anything for free they finally deactivated my radio so i could return it.

 

[cappa]

the only way you can get online listneing with your "free trial" is if you change your subscripition to paid.

 

[blackraven456]

the only way you can get online listneing with your "free trial" is if you change your subscripition to paid.

While that seems the case, it's not so according to my pamphlet. Keep in mind though that the Canadian Sirius radio has different terms then the American one.

They ARE the same parent company but here's how it works to my understanding - Canada has foreign ownership rules so you can be fined and taxed heavily if you aren't a registered Canadian company. So therefore these big companies create a canadian company with their name in it. For example, Wal-Mart isn't just Wal-Mart, its a separate company called Wal-Mart Canada. They operate pretty much exactly the same as the US one, they just funnel everything through the Canadian entity and onto Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas.

Ok, so when it comes to radio if you recall Sirius and XM were different companies that later merged. The problem with that is in Canada is they were also different companies in bed with 3rd parties like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation so merging in Canada has been a mess. Best of XM is not available on the Canadian Sirius because it's still a separate registered company here.

Anyhow, my whole pre-amble is to point out that in the Canadian Sirius pamphlet it clearly says - "Q. Can I listen to sirius outside my vehicle
A. Yes. Online listening is included with every Sirius subscription, including trial subscriptions. Call Sirius Customer Service at -"

Blah blah blah.

I just want them to honor their advertising.

 

[misterfan]

My biggest issue with them is that I have a very impressive audio system, and the sound quality of SIRIUS is god knows what kbps. It's absolutely terrible if you're an audio person, or every anyone who isn't listening to anything that isn't talk show.

I still subscribe, but likely won't renew after my year. The CS told me that after my trial was over and I had a paid subscription the quality would improve. It didn't, and it doesn't. It was quite literally a lie, or he was not educated and provided me with false information

 

[cappa]

My biggest issue with them is that I have a very impressive audio system, and the sound quality of SIRIUS is god knows what kbps. It's absolutely terrible if you're an audio person, or every anyone who isn't listening to anything that isn't talk show.

I still subscribe, but likely won't renew after my year. The CS told me that after my trial was over and I had a paid subscription the quality would improve. It didn't, and it doesn't. It was quite literally a lie, or he was not educated and provided me with false information

lol of course it's a lie.

 

[me2000]

Does anyone have an example of what kind of deal you can get by calling in before your trial is up?

I'd like to keep it but I'll drop it if I have to pay $12.95 a month.

 

[yetanothername]

Does anyone have an example of what kind of deal you can get by calling in before your trial is up?

I'd like to keep it but I'll drop it if I have to pay $12.95 a month.

Let it expire, then they'll start calling you offering discounts. The last offer they made me after saying no a few times was $20 for 6 months. This is for the Ford Edge - my Focus doesn't have Sirius.

 

[cappa]

Let it expire, then they'll start calling you offering discounts. The last offer they made me after saying no a few times was $20 for 6 months. This is for the Ford Edge - my Focus doesn't have Sirius.

Yup my friend kept saying no and then they offered him a package for basically like the same price, lol

 

[me2000]

Cool. Thanks for the heads up guys!

Definitely don't need it but it's nice to have... I think I can deal with $20 for 6 months.

 

[Kabigon]

My biggest issue with them is that I have a very impressive audio system, and the sound quality of SIRIUS is god knows what kbps. It's absolutely terrible if you're an audio person, or every anyone who isn't listening to anything that isn't talk show.

I can only imagine that there have been internal discussions (arguments) about this at Sirius. I believe they have to make a tradeoff which is the total number of channels vs. audio quality.

I totally agree that it is awful for music. Even the voice quality (for talk stations) sounds like a badly encoded low bit rate MP3 file.

 

[copernicium112]

The only time I called them was a pain in the a$$. Took forever and didn't accomplish much. I had "Christopher". Yeah, right. What an Anglo-sounding name for an accent like that but whatever, your parents had a sense of humor or you're completely lying (I know which it is). Thought I got a deal in that I called 8/11/11 and when I logged back in my trial said expires 11/2/2012. Either they initially use the Euro style of date presentation (you know, the one that actually makes way more sense than the American presentation) initially and it corrects itself for the American market or they realized their mistake and fixed it because a couple of days later it was switched to expires 2/11/2012. Oh well, thought I got lucky but alas not so.

On a side note, there is only one station on there that I can even really enjoy somewhat and maybe a second that I can listen to in small doses but in my limited experience with my Nav system their traffic and POI stuff has been spot on so far so I was wondering, in that I have not tried SyncServices yet for any of this info, is it any good (for those that may have used both)? Does it compare? As far as I can tell on the website, this is just an add-on for a few extra bucks a month and I can't subscribe to just that and let them keep their crappy radio. Didn't see the option to just subscribe to this and not radio unless I just missed it.

 

[memphiscbrider]

"thank you come again" in apu voice

 

[me2000]

I work with Indians quite a bit in my job... I work in the IT division of one of the largest insurance companies in the country and we have A LOT of developers offshore in India (and here in the states on visas). It's so hard to understand them sometimes.... it really does drag meetings and progress sometimes. But they are very hardworking and very smart. It's just the communication barrier!

 

[ChrisN]

2 hours on the phone trying to spell P.A.S.E.O. P.A.D.R.E. WTF!!! I dont speek spanish and i can sound that out

 

[tigertiger]

I work with Indians quite a bit in my job... I work in the IT division of one of the largest insurance companies in the country and we have A LOT of developers offshore in India (and here in the states on visas). It's so hard to understand them sometimes.... it really does drag meetings and progress sometimes. But they are very hardworking and very smart. It's just the communication barrier!

But, as I'm sure you know, their English is infinitely better than our Hindi, Tamil, Gujurati and any number of other languages they speak. I haven't met an Indian yet who didn't speak at least two languages in addition to English.

 

[scottjl]

Can we keep the racist comments out of the discussion. Sheesh. As Tiger pointed out at least they are multi-lingual. They are people trying to do a job, just like any of you would be. Don't show your ignorance by making fun of someone who isn't even speaking their native language.

 

[Gabe2010SE]

I have called Sirius's "Customer Service" (lack of) and I've been disappointed every time I've called.

First time I needed to cancel my first account, since my second account was activated by the dealer when I bought my Charger - it came with 1 year of pre-paid service.

They wouldn't understand that I no longer used the service in my previous car since it was traded-in. It took me over 45 minutes of fighting with them on the phone, to get them to cancel the account and make it a zero balance. They actually wanted to charge me for time I didn't use the service, simply because I didn't call to cancel right away, even though they could see on their computer the activation date of my new account, and that the old account had no activity since then.

Last time I had a problem, I wanted to get a deal on activating the Focus Sirius radio, and keep the Charger's activated also. The guy actually wanted me to double my bill, and pay an activation fee for the second account.

I said no thanks, and hung up, then kept getting more aggravated about it as I was thinking about it, and called back to cancel the account.

I got a much nicer guy in the cancellation dept, and he gave me a deal and a half to stay, only about $20 more than a regular account, and I have Sirius in both cars.

I'm also a very unhappy shareholder, having bought a bunch of shares when they were about $7-$8/share, only to watch the stock plummet to as low as 39 cents a share a few months later.

I bought more at that time though, and am waiting for it to go over $2/share so I can finally unload it and make back the $$$ I originally put into it. Then I'll be done with their stock, and no more stock purchases for me ... [?|]

 

[misfire]

sirius radio employees hound you after the 6 months to renew. they even gave me a free week last week after hounding me for a few months. No means NO