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Blogs by Barbara Sue
MELL OF A HESS 11/2/2006 12:53:36 PM
Disappointment, disbelief, anger, and frustration that occurred in a five minute conversation with Sirius Satellite Radio Customer Service.
To those of you who have been reading my blogs, you know how excited I was about signing up for the on-line Sirius
Radio at $12.95 a month plus tax. Their 24-7 music channel has great music and sound. I waited until Sunday, Oct 29th to try out listening to my Cincinnati Bengals game as I played poker on-line..I could not access the sports channel to listen. Tried all the channels I was told I would be getting. Nothing. Only the music channels were coming through loud and clear. I hurridly called customer service about the problem. I was then told that for my .12.95 a month, plus tax, I could only access the music channel, BUT I was still connected to them and could get the sports liked I wanted and NASCAR in January, along with Howard, and whatever else they listed on their site. I only had to buy a sirius radio set with docking and home or auto kit.This came with an indoor-outdoor antenna also.
I was so upset by this time. I advised the man exactly what the woman had told me at the time of my purchase subscription. He kind of laughed(or snorted, not sure which) and said that I had just probably misunderstood what she was saying..Well, his little noise did it for me.
I told him exactly how many times I had called back and talked to several customer service sales people, just to make sure what she told me was truth and what I thought about this..He then transferred me to another department, which was called product department, and there a woman this time basicly told me the same thing, only she wasn't quite as rude as the first man, but never-the-less what she told me boiled down to either I have to get the radio-docking-inside and outside antenna-home or auto kit, or I would get nothing but the music.. She told me that there was a note on my file about me liking NASCAR and she did too, as if this would console me. Then she transferred me to the retention plan dept, this time it was a man. His name was Peter, the others never gave me their names, and he apologized for all the problems I was having, and said a lot of their sales people were new, some didn't really
understand the satellite plans, etc...BUT, he would help me be able to listen to my football games and hear the races on my computer. FIRST, I had to purchase a home and auto kit and told me Sanyo was a good set to buy, so he told me to get a CRSR 10 sirius satellite kit for around $40 and then call him back, he gave me his direct number.
I purchased this CRSR 10 kit. I tried calling him back, giving them his extension number and name. Waited about 5 minutes then someone came back on line and said he wasn't in, BUT they could help me, as they worked in the same department, etc..I explained what Peter had told me. Luckily my son was home to put everything together in the kit before I called Sirius--the kit had cute little radio with a blue screen, and a dock to hook it on, plus the inside-outside antenna. My son had hooked up the necessary wires to the speaker already. Basicly all that was needed was a signal to be sent by Sirius to my kit. The blue screen was lit up and said " acquiring reception"" or "transmission", I cannot remember at the moment, but all I know is that it never went above 20%, which, according to this man, meant that the antenna was not getting good signals, he had told me to point it to the west, at a 45 degree angle, make sure it was pointed up to the sky, and wait...well, I did, over 45minutes, while the man on the phone laughed and talked with someone else, and I had to keep yelling in the phone, asking if he was still there, and then said he would send another signal out to me, still holding, moving the antenna to the 3 different windows in my den, he decided maybe we had a bad antenna, or better still, should put it outside of the window. I advised him that wouldn't be a good idea, as our neighborhood dogs and cats, not to mention the family of squirels we have living on our grounds, could get it, and the squirels ate anything they wanted. Besides, this antenna looked like a TINY CELL PHONE AND FIT IN THE PALM OF MY HAND, and with the 10-foot cord attached to it just where could it be placed outside? He then said hold on a minute, and 22 minutes later came back and said it was time for his shift to end, but he was transferring me to someone else who would take care of me, and was gone before I could say another word. Next, in about 4 minutes a cheery female voice said she could help me. Now, by this time I had gone over almost my whole life history with each and every person I had to talk to..when she asked me what my problem was I guess I just lost it. I asked her didn't she see any notes on my account from each person I had been in contact with? No ma'am was her reply. I explained how I had been on the phone almost 4 hours that night and was still where I was in the beginning. Now, every time you talk to any person at Sirius, you have to give them your hp#, verify your name and home address, then they ask you to please log in again with your username and passcode, so then can make sure I am on line, I do this, and after 3 attempts to log-in, it tells me I cannot be allowed in as I have too many tries to get in. This is because each and every time you call to customer service, because you can't get logged on, they make you change your user name and passcode, then the system has a hitch, or they are working on the media player, etc, and the system won't supposedly take anybody's username and passcode,etc, until the problem is fixed..That is another story which I will not go into for now...So, back to this last female, who says she could help me for sure..long and short of it is, she didn't and couldn't-BUT she did CREDIT my account for $20 so I could purchase another satellite antenna, saying to buy a UNIVERSAL satellite antenna, which might work better..and then advised she was also deducting a $19 charge that someone had put on my credit card the day before when I had called needing help to log-in. I questioned what the charge was for and she said it was for upgrading to the plus premium which gave better quality reception,etc..I won't tell you what I told her then, but I am sure those two credits to my credit card were the fastest transactions in history....
So, the bottom line is, I have music to listen to on line, while mastering my computer, for $12.95 a month, plus tax.
I am so upset over all this, and no, I did not misunderstand any thing that was told to me by anybody during these last few days. I am really surprised that this all didn't cause me a heart attack. My whole body still feels the effect of repeating my problems over and over to so many different so-called help experts--one of them mentioned that the new passcode she was giving me to use had a 12 after it, and this was because the system had not allowed me access that many times that day, and it wasn't even my fault. You can image how FUNNY I thought that was.
So, what do I do now? Buy the new Universal antenna, which works better inside and outside, or forget about about my
hopes to be able to listen to the NASCAR races on-line???
It just isn't the same watching the races on TV, you have to listen and then, if necessary, get up from the computer and go around the corner and check out the TV coverage. But what happens if they aren't all broadcast on TV, I don't want to go there..I guess I could send an e-mail to Jeff G., Kasey, Tony, Carl,etc. asking them to help me..Nah..I just have to learn to live without listening to my Nascar on-line...Especially since my local radio stations do not carry the races, which prompted me on this joourney in the first place. Anyone wanting to leave a comment plese feel free to do so. About Howard, I also get him kinda censored or not censored, I have my choice, included in this $12.95 per month charge, plus tax
and I didn't even want him, and no, I can't trade him in for my nascar, I already asked that question. Thanks for dropping by.
