I’ve been an XM subscriber for several years; we even have two radios — one in our minivan and one in my office that I listen to all throughout the workday. I very much enjoy their music selection.
I got an email recently that it was getting time to renew — would I be interested in renewing for a multi-year bundle? You can save a little money by paying the balance up front (vs. monthly); I didn’t mind giving a little money to cash-strapped XM in the hopes that it will help them stay afloat. So I renewed on a multi-year plan early last week.
On Friday, I was out all morning and first used my minivan XM radio mid-afternoon. It went to the “preview” channel, meaning that it had somehow been deactivated. Blast!
I was busy with work and running errands all afternoon, so I didn’t think about this until I got home and turned on the XM radio in my office. It exhibited the same behavior: only tuning the “preview” channel, indicating that it, too, had been deactivated. Gaahhh!
I tried logging into the XM web site to see what was up, but it was refusing my login (“the XM system is having problems; please try later”). So I called XM and asked what was up. After a very confusing conversation, the support rep said that a supervisor would be calling me back between 24-72 hours later (which seems like a really odd timeframe). In the meantime — no XM radio. So sad. ☹
I finally got a call Sunday evening: the minivan radio had been fixed (I tested it and it works again), but my office radio had not. I can login to the web site now, but it only shows the car radio — it doesn’t show my office radio. I’m waiting for yet another call back from XM to figure out how to fix that.
I asked the rep this evening what the cause for these problems was. She gave me a very confusing answer that led me to believe that the fact that I renewed (somehow I apparently changed plans in the process?) caused a 24-72 hour delay in processing that deactivated my radios in the meantime. Very, very frustrating.
Seriously, for a cash-strapped company like XM, they should not be offering promotions like this and then cutting off service for multiple days to long-time/loyal listeners while they “upgrade” your service.
Bah.