Monday, April 01, 2013

I so wish this were an April Fool's Day story.

Last week, I received a notice from SiriusXM radio saying that I owed $4.52.  Given that I thought that I was paid up, I checked my account.  Yep--my account showed a zero balance.  So I thought that I'd scan the dunning letter with a note saying that my online account said that I was paid up, send that letter to customer service, and be done with the issue.

Nope.  The email from the customer service department reiterated that I had a $4.52 balance.  I responded that I had checked my account online, and that I had a zero balance.

You know what happens next, right?  Several emails and phone calls later, I've figured out that:
  • SiriusXM's snail mail and email customer service folks never speak to the online or phone folks.
  • "Use this reference number when talking with the email customer service people--that will help" comments from other SiriusXM customer service reps don't actually help.
  • SiriusXM appears to want to cancel the account associated with my current car, rather than pay attention to the fact that I closed my old account several years ago, when I sold my old car.
  • SiriusXM's email that it had, for the purposes of making a long-time customer happy, had credited my account for the $4.52.  This notice was followed an hour later by an automated phone call saying that I had a balance due on my account.
  • This morning, I received a phone call from SiriusXM's customer service folks (some sort of ombudsman escalation) that gave me a phone number to call.  Well, it gave me nine out of the ten digits to call.  I suppose that I could try ten different last-digit numbers, but I don't want to spend any more time dealing with this issue today, other than recording this whole experience in today's blog (and then tweeting about it).
Is it any reason that I went to SiriusXM's 10-Q, looked up its corporate address, and sent a letter to its General Counsel?  He should get the letter on Wednesday.  Maybe he can do something about SiriusXM's customer service.  I sure can't.

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