Recently I took the Sirrus Radio XM Plunge and ordered their portable
radio with MP3 player. Boy was that a mistake. When the radio arrived the
antenna coax was too short so I had to order a 50 foot extension. Once the
antenna coax I arrived I went about setting up my XM radio. As I tuned
around the channels I couldn't find any sports channels or Howard Stern, I
hadn't listened to him since he went to Sirrus, I then called XM where the
lady with a heavy foreign accent using a VOIP line that was muffled
informed to get those channels I would have to pay an additional $44. Well
OK I said I wanted to be able to listen to weekend sports while on my
daily exercise at the park. After the extended channels were activated all
of sudden every 45 seconds the audio on the radio would cut out for about
four seconds. It didn't matter if I used a car stereo, plugged in a
external speaker or used the players head phone jack it would cut out, but
the Sat signal was 100%.
Dealing with XM tech support amounted to calling and getting put into
voice mail jail then being disconnected. When I did get a tech they didn't
know anything, I don't even think they knew they worked on behalf of XM or
Sirrus radio.
After fifteen days of going back and forth I finally throw in the towel
and after four attempts I was able to get an RMA number. So I sent the
radio, coax and software (BTW, the XM MP3 Software works only w/ WinXP
32-bit nothing else) back to XM via UPS with all parts in their original
packaging. Was that good enough for XM? Hell no it wasn't. They claimed
they didn't get all the parts back when I called them weeks later about my
refund. So I asked them what parts I didn't return? They didn't know what
parts were missing, but they insisted they were missing. After several
more calls I finally was awarded the credit for the XM radio. However
according to XM since I had not canceled the subscription within the first
30 days they would keep my 220.00 subscription fees.
Lucky for me I kept a copy of all my XM documentation and printed out the
contract, item five plainly stated I could return the radio and cancel the
service by calling them upon return of my radio which I did. So I gathered
up all the documentation made copies and used highlights to show return of
the items by UPS, the subscription and equipment refund clause then sent
them to my credit card company to dispute the charges. After 20 days the
CC credited my account the subscription fees.
All I can say Shortwave never caused this much headache and I even had to
install a long wire antenna to catch the transmissions.