Lifetime XM Everything (XM Radio)

In December 2009, I was contacted by an XM Radio call center representative to inquire about transferring my current annual subscription to Lifetime XM Everything for the cost of $461.19. An annual subscription rate at that time was $142.45. At first it seemed an outrageous price, but the more I thought about it and because we liked the service, it seemed sensible to transfer one of our two subscriptions. Because we traded every three years (at that time), I asked if the Lifetime XM Everything was transferable. The answer was yes, for $75.00. Cool. Otherwise, it would make no sense. In November of 2011, I swapted from a Honda Civic Hybrid to an Acura TSX. Before the trade I called SiriusXM to see if the transfer cost was as I had noted. The answer was yes. After the trade I called and transferred the service to the new car, was charged the $75.00 and reminded them (through much difficulity due to the non-Engish native language barrier of the call center represenative, “Jack”, (a woman)), the 90 trial period for the Acura was not necessary due to the Lifetime XM Everything subscription. Since the trade, I’ve been getting notices to transfer my “trial” subscription to an “annual” subscription or the service would end. I contacted the call center and found somehow the Lifetime XM Everything had been terminated and I indeed only had a 90 day subsciption. After nearly an hour on the phone, they were unable to resolve the issue and opened an incident number to be corrected by 3/20. I asked to speak with a supervisor (English native language please so I can be assured we understand one another) and was told there were none available, so I spoke to whom they connected me to for confirmation that the problem would be resolved by 3/20. The next day I got a SiriusXM email survey to complete and, needless to say, they were slammed! The following day I got a call from a “customer advocate” (Mary, English native language) who promptly told me they never offered Lifetime XM Everything transfers. Thanks to my copious note taking, names, dates, etc., she said she’d review it with her manager and send it up to corporate for resolution. Within a few minutes, I was notified by Mary they would allow “this” transfer, but no more. On my way out of work, I asked my boss if he had XM Radio and he said yes…four subscriptions and three were lifetime for which I found he paid the same price and had transferred a couple of them for $75.00. My question is, have any of you run into a similar problem with SiriusXM.

I have had XM for 7 years and was never offered lifetime service. I know that Sirius has lifetime service, but was not aware both offered it now. They make their web site too difficult to navigate to see what packages are available.

No, but when I deal with any call center, I often wonder if they get any training or if they just hire anyone with a pulse. Our own Helpdesk at work as well.

Sure sounds like a scam in here somewhere. Are you sure that the person(s) who contacted you were really agents of SiriusXM? There are a lot of bogus companies out there that scam people all the time with similar sounding company names. Keeping detailed records is a smart thing to do.

According to the SiriusXM web site the lifetime subscrition is for the receiver, not the individual. Most people would think that a lifetime subscription would be for thier lifetime but you can’t expect 50 years of service for $400.

From the SiriusXM web site:

If you have a Lifetime subscription associated with an automotive receiver, those are not transferrable unless the receiver was stolen or is defective. But if you have a Lifetime plan associated with a home, portable or dock & play radio, then these Lifetime packages are transferrable from one radio to another radio on the same platform up to a maximum of 3 times. Ther is a $75 fee for Lifetime package transfers.

Not much of a service in my opinion if you still have to pay a fairly high amount just to transfer it. Which involves a customer service rep typing a serial number into a computer. If it’s a true lifetime package, it should let you use X number of devices forever with a very minimal transfer fee IMHO.

We let the new car introductory service expire and received a low monthly cost service restart offer which we took. Buried in the fine print on their website at that time was the automatic renewal and implied permission to debit our charge card at the full rate when the offer ran out. When I found out about that I canceled. I don’t want to do business with a company that engages in sleezeball tactics such as that. Beside that, they keep playing the same stuff over and over again on the channels that we liked. I use the service when they do freebie broadcasting once or twice per year as an inducement to get us to buy again which will not happen. We have two cars with satellite antennas and drive only one at a time and I won’t pay twice. Their business model can go bust for all I care.

Listen to NPR and keep your I Pod full of Car Talk; avoid the hassle. : )

I also purchased the lifetime package from XM radio a few years ago for $300. I still have the same car so I have never transferred the service. Also, I used to have an account but since Sirius bought XM, I don’t have one anymore. I’d like to add traffic but not sure how I can now.

I’ve never been offered the lifetime deal, but when we traded cars, I spent over an hour with them one Sunday trying to settle everything that also included a second car. I finally just gave up. I called again Monday and got a totally different result. I really really really dislike dealing with them. And it sure seems like the stations offered are nothing special anymore. I like intelligent talk radio not left wing or right wing when I travel, or audio books, or old time mysteries etc. I just don’t play much music. If it wasn’t for the weather reports and my wife liking the music, I wouldn’t bother with them anymore.

I am giving them a try on our new car. It’s been very nice on a couple of round trips of 800 miles we’ve taken. It bothers me that some of their music channels have very short playlists. We heard repeats within four hours. We may keep it even though we drive very little, just for the long, boring trips we sometimes take. My partner doesn’t like listening to my classical music for long, and he hasn’t ripped most of his CDs. XM is perfect for him as he’ll change channels if there is a song he doesn’t like.

Even after XM and Sirius combined, only Sirius offered lifetime service. The best I’ve gotten from XM is a 3-year renewal.

I had the 6 month trial period when I bought my car, but never personally activated it. I got something from them in the mail last summer saying I could have 6 months for $25. I don’t drive much, and figured what the heck, since I had planned a bit of a road trip with my mom(which didn’t happen). I enjoyed the 2 or 3 stations I listened to, but paying $150/year for radio is absurd IMO.
I have an ipod and am happy with that, despite the fact that you can’t easily retrieve your songs off the thing if you get a new computer.

When I got my car (used), the previous owner had apparently paid for a year of XM service, then abandoned it when he sold the car. So I “enjoyed” XM for almost a year before it stopped working. A few things I noticed:

-The fidelity is much worse than a standard FM station with a good signal. No doubt because they’ve compressed the data stream to death to fit as many channels as they can on their allotted bandwidth. At XM’s best, it seemed comparable to an .mp3 encoded at about 64-96K.
-There are a lot of channels to choose from, but most of them have a pretty limited playlist. I like 80s music a lot, and whoever programmed their lineup seemed to have a Duran Duran fixation.
-When my service shut off, I missed it for about a week, but not very much. Not enough to pay for it. I do occasionally miss the comedy channels though when I’m traveling.

Now if you get a newer car that has Pandora or allows streaming from a smartphone over Bluetooth like my after-market stereo on my old car does, that is far superior to anything XM offers.