What happens after the XM trial period?

I installed an XM module on my wife's Lexus GS and she had service for about 8 months before they got around to cutting it off. She didn't like it so I never made any effort to extend the trial period.

 

I'll never get the fixation with Howard Stern, an overrated prevert with a loud mouth.

 

I couldn't agree with you more, but I suspect we are a minority.

 

Thanks. When they call, I'll remember this price. I really only want the traffic part. My podcasts keep my amused and I'm backed up on them since I've had the Free XM for a while...I can maybe spring for under $10.00 a month to hear more of Betty-BotLady interrupting my solitude.

As far as the Stern thing....never asked you to listen....and I'd rather listen to 12 hours continuous Stern than to 30 seconds of Christian Broadcasting...but then again, was my opinion asked here in the first place?

 

I'm about to decide whether to re-up mine as well. I also really only want the traffic but some folks are getting a $77 special to re-up the XM radio and then $3.99/month for traffic = 124.88/year vs the traffic alone at 9.99/month = $119.88/year. Seems like the radio part is ~free. I think the special automatically reverts to full price and is automatically charged after the first year so you have to remember to intervene before that happens. I'm about to try this in the next week or so.

p.s. I agree with you about the religious broadcasting vs Stern thing, and I don't listen to Stern.

 

+1 on Howard Stern, but I would rather listen to him than Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and the other nitwits on Fox Noise.

 

My trial subscription ends next Friday. Is it better to wait until it shuts off and then call them up to renew it for $77? And if I do that, will it take awhile for the XM to download all of the info again (I've read people having to leave their cars on tuned to the XM for a couple of hours to do this). Or should I just call up now and renew the subscription for $77 and just get it over with? And I'm not going to worry about 7 days, as I'd rather have XM constantly running without any hiccups (re-downloading everything again).

 

They didn't start my year until my trial subscription expired. The added benefit of doing it earlier is you can have them send a bill and pay by check. I hate to give any service like XM, Sirius, DirecTV or Dish a credit card number as I want to control whether they can charge me or not without having to cancel a credit card.

 

I'm not so sure they'll renew at $77. They told me that fee would hold for a year but was NOT renewable and would revert to an automatic re-upping for a year at the regular rate on your credit card. That was unless you called and cancelled or changed things before the year was up.

Let us know either way you decide do it. Sometimes if you don't get the answer you want from them you have to hang up and call (another one) again.

 

There is at least one caveat to paying before the trial period is up, in my experience. They screw things up. This is what happened to me a few days ago. Because the trial period was ending, an email came to me first. I called them to remind them that I had previously paid-up for additional service and wanted to insure things would transition smoothly. They assured me they would. Then, when the trial period ended, the service became truncated with me not getting all I had paid for. It took me 5 total calls (the first three suddenly became disconnected) to resolve the issue. The 4th of 5 calls ended up with a supervisor (at my polite request) who hinted of me not paying, wanting proof of payment which would involve digging up my credit card record copying and faxing it to them and then waiting "48 hrs. or so" for their "investigation" to tell me the status of my account. The 5th call was to a supervisor who got everything re-established to where it had been previously, and this whole process took well over a hour.

I think that they are getting overly aggressive in handling complaints (even very legitimate ones like mine) so when all is said and done you'll be happy to have what you just started with.

Most of the time they are very difficult to deal with and frustrating. I always document dates, times and names as well as their i.d. numbers (for those who I have trouble with), but I am always civil and polite assuming everything is recorded.

My revenge came when I filled out the survey which came days later. On the survey I laid out all the facts on how poorly I was treated while praising the (5th call) person who made things right. If there was another company to deal with, they would have my business over Sirius/XM.

 

I don't think you can pay ahead of time. They would only bill me at the time it was due, but it was for the $77. I called them in the first month of the three month trial period, added the best of Sirius and they billed me for that and the year when my three months were up. I thought they would bill me for the best of Sirius right away, but they said they can't bill for less than some amount, maybe $10 or $15. One simple reason I would never give them a credit card number is I would rather go without for a few days when I forget to call them or pay them at renewal time than have to dispute a credit card charge. Not that I don't trust them...I trust them to do whatever is in their best interests.

 

I called about a month before the service was to expire. Got the $77 rate with no problem and wasn't charged until the following month (which gave me a little over 3 months of "free" service). No problems and the XM rep was polite and helpful. I think the degree of hassle/screw-up depends on who answers the XM phone when you call.

 

Absolutely, but most of those who answer at customer care screw up .

 

I wasn't renewing the service, just getting service after my trial ends this upcoming weekend.

For the bold comment above, my work around for that was to buy a Visa gift card and put $125 onto it. When I called XM, I setup my 1 year subscription with nav traffic for $124.88 and they said they would charge my credit card if I didn't change or cancel my plan in a year. I just didn't want the hassle in the long run of them still trying to charge me on my regular card, even if I cancelled or changed rates after a year. So using the gift Visa card solves that problem and they can't over charge me. Think of it like sending them a check for the payment, but they get the payment right away instead of waiting for your check to process & clear.

 

To avoid full price auto renewal XM subscription charges, I called(800-967-2346) about a week in advance of my expiration date. I opted for "cancellation" via the computerized voice menu and was promptly routed to a CSR. She pulled up my account, asked me why I was canceling, and I told her the continuing regular annual renewal rate of $142.45 was just too costly considering my very limited current use of XM Sirius programming.

Since the expiration of my new owner 3-month trial period I have been on the $23.05 (Code:ZWINBACK) "XM Everything" 5-month promotion and the CSR instantly offered to simply renew this subscription rate for "loyal customers". When I hesitated a bit she then asked if I would be interested in an annual rate of $88.78($77 + artist fees) via their "half-off promotion".

I chose to continue the cheaper 5-month plan and opted to pay by check instead of by credit card. To me that's worth the extra $2 invoice fee. The entire renewal process took less than 5 minutes.

After several weeks I still haven't received an invoice so I created an online account with XM, retrieved a copy of my current invoice and paid it using electronic bill pay. We will see how that works.

 

Thanks for the info. I will have to remember this when my account is close to expiring.

 

Thanks to you all I at least got the price down for a 1 year renewal from the 3 month trial. I'm not sure I will renew beyond that but at least this gives me more time to play with it. I really wish we had as much traffic information as I can get from google maps (washington DC). Here you only get traffic on the major interstates and that's it. None of the U.S. or state major highways. It is a bit disappointing so that I almost always look up the traffic on my iphone in addition to the NAV traffic.

So here is what I paid:

$77: XM renewal
$11.78: fees (Maryland)
$47.84: traffic
$2: fee for paper invoice (so they don't have my CC number)
Total = $138.66.

The renewal bill they sent in the mail was for $212.12 for a year. The XM rep tried to sell me lots of expensive multi-year options and payment plans. When I told her others were getting the XM extension for $77, she immediately said I could have that. I believe this is the same experience as others. The last strange thing is that even though I'm renewing a month before the end of the trial, she said the invoice won't show up until a month after the trial ends. Weird. At least I'll get invoiced for subsequent years instead of having an automatic CC charge.

 

Oh... I hope you have better luck than I've had with setting something up for the future. They screw me up time after time out-and-out lying to me on what the deal will be and what it actually turns out to be when the time comes. Let us know what happens and good luck with them getting it right.

 

Anybody have XM service for your Prius, and also an XM radio for your home? Did you have to buy two different subscriptions?

 

My free trial expires tomorrow - June 9th....and I have yet to hear from XM other than by Mail.