Two years ago, I purchased a Sirius satellite radio receiver for my father-in-law. He recently sold his truck and returned the receiver to me. The receiver is made up of three parts – the main unit, the base, and the antenna – and the base and antenna remained in the truck. So, I had the main unit, but I didn’t have a base or an antenna to use it with. I have Sirius in my car, but I’ve been wanting to add Sirius service to my van, but I didn’t want to fork out the money to buy a new receiver (or base / antenna for the old receiver). So, I called Sirius to cancel the service (which was in my name) – and the retention department offered me a brand new receiver (complete with main unit, base, and antenna). It should arrive in about five business days, at which time I’ll call and activate the new receiver. Added bonus – I can now sell the old receiver on eBay, make a few bucks, and pay for a few months worth of service.
Process Overview:
- Dialed Sirius phone number:Â 1-888-539-7474
- Entered my phone number at the prompt
- Pressed “zero” about 20 times until I was connected to a “real person”
- Informed CSR that I “wanted to close my account”
- Was asked for some basic information (Address, Email, Last 4 digits of receiver id)
- Transferred to “Retention Department”
- Was offered a Sirius InV – A basic plug-and-play receiver – worth about $40
I just did the SAME exact thing recently. Called to cancel (pressed 0 a million times) and then got transferred to retention. I haggled a little bit and got – most likely – the same receiver, a baseball hat (who knows why, i’ll never wear it but I’ll take it) and a credit to have it professionally installed if I chose to. I may just call up next month and try to cancel again and see what happens!
Great deal! Right now, it makes very good business sense for Sirius to do that. They need to maintain all the subscribers they can to try and become profitable. Since the service is already beaming everywhere and is a fixed cost, the only added cost to keep you as a customer is the $40 revceiver (which costs them much less than $40), and the added cost of maintaining your account (minimal). Good deal on both ends. 🙂
after ten years it better be free… and you should really have a free year to go along with it
i mean 2