Seriously Sirius?

I’ve been a subscriber of Sirius satellite radio for almost two years now. I first got the service because I was fed up with regular radio. Too many commercials, too few options to choose from, way too much repetitive programming, and censored content. I understand the need for some of these, but with satellite radio I now had another option open to me.

Well for the past 6-9 months I’ve been getting more and more disappointed with my Sirius service. They now censor content on some of the popular channels. I can almost see doing this, but it’s satellite radio and I personally don’t think they should censor any of their content. Plus they are censoring words like “cockroach” and “suicide”, not just cuss words. Also, the programming is starting to get more and more repetitive, and I am having a harder time finding songs I like to listen to, even with the added number of channels. I’m also having issues with reception. I have a stretch of road I drive every workday. Most days I get great reception, but about once a month I’ll have a run of several days where the signal fades in and out. For the life of me I can’t pin down anything unique to those days. It happens at all times of the year, in all kinds of weather, so I’m at a loss.

I did email Sirius about the censoring and reception. Concerning the censoring they responded:

At SIRIUS, our goal is to make the listening experience enjoyable to all of our many and diverse subscribers. J.D., we strive to deliver an entertaining mix of both family-friendly and adult programming. To that end, we occasionally air versions of certain songs edited for family listening. This practice only affects select music channels and a relatively small number of songs in our vast library. The majority of our music channels remain completely unedited. We apologize for any frustration this may cause. We are forwarding your comments to the appropriate department for further review.

So basically a standard (and expected) reply of “too bad so sad”. I’ve not noticed any changes to their censoring. In fact, if anything, it’s gotten worse on those channels.

With regard to the reception, they apologized, then had me try several things to improve reception, plus answer a bunch of questions regarding time of day, weather, driving direction, etc., etc., etc. I tried their suggestions and answered their questions, but still encounter the previously mentioned problem. I was hoping for some resolution, but fine, I’m one customer, I understand that.

At any rate, I’ve decided not to renew my subscription when it expires later this month. And this folks is where I get really annoyed with Sirius. My subscription is set to renew automatically, as it did last year. Last year, I received no notice of this from Sirius. I just happened to see the charge on my bank statement and went hunting to see what it was about. That’s just bad form if you ask me. A notice of some sort would have been appropriate, but I adjusted and put a reminder in my calendar. Since I am canceling this year, I obviously didn’t want it to automatically renew, so I went online to manage my Sirius account and found a few issues I have a problem with. One, there is no way to delete the credit card I have on file with them. Two, there is no way to turn off automatic renewing of your subscription. And three, there is no way to just cancel your account. In my opinion, I should be able to do all of these.

That left me with the option of calling or emailing customer service. Predicting that I’d get hit with a slew of questions regarding why I was canceling, I decided to just email them and request they cancel my account at the end of my subscription and confirm that my credit card would not be charged for another year of service. I provided all the necessary info to show I was the account holder. Today, I heard back from them. Apparently, the email customer service reps can’t cancel accounts. I was told I have to call and request a cancellation, and that I need to do so before the end of my subscription or my card would in fact be charge for another year of service.

Seriously Sirius?