Sirius Satellite Radio
Sent to collections for unpaid fees after cancelling and service ended

A few years ago I was a Sirius subscriber. About a year and a half ago I was laid off from my job, and as Sirius was an unnecessary expense - we cancelled our subscription.

Six months later after numerous solicitations to come back to Sirius, we re-subscribed on a "3 FREE MONTHS" deal to come back with absolutely no obligation to continue after those 3 months. The only fee was a $1.75 fee per radio "re-activation fee". I used my unemployment card for the transaction, and sure enough I was billed $3.50. All was well!

A few months after that I was still searching for work and called Sirius to cancel my subscription, and wanted to be sure they didn't bill me going forward once the free 3 months had expired. I was told that my account had been notated and was set for de-activation once the free months expired. All was well once again.

After the 3 months, we lost service to the radios and I didn't think anything of it as I expected (and was told) this was going to happen. I have since then found work and my unemployment card is expired.

Yesterday I get a notice from a 3rd party collection agency stating that Sirius has turned my account over to them due to a $35.01 balance of unpaid fees. I called to inquire what this so called unpaid fee was, and it was the amount of 1 month subscription for 2 radios, as well as a fee for the transaction being declined. Sirius never once tried to contact me via phone, email, or physical mail. WTF!?!?

#1 - I cancelled my account with them again BEFORE this transaction ever should have happened, and #2 - WHY did no one from Sirius try to contact me and try to resolve this without sending it to a collection firm? They have my email address, physical address and phone number as I am once again getting solicitations to "re-subscribe to Sirius".

To lay the icing on the cake, I called Sirius today and after several call escalations, I spoke with a woman who "claimed" to be a VP of customer resolutions. During the extremely brief conversation, I was told that Sirius does not expect to retain 100% of their customers and I need to pay the fee and leave them alone. Is Sirius SERIOUS? And this is supposed to be someone in charge of customer resolutions???

All I have to say is I hope it was worth it to them to "attempt" to collect $35 in return for as much bad publicity as I can share about a company who lies and steals from their customers.

Company: Sirius Satellite Radio
Country: USA
Site: sirius.com

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