Category: Fail

Posted on

So Sirius & I are done.

I’ve had  Sirius for more than a decade.

Originally, they were pretty cool and the variety of programming was a delight to listen to.

Then slowly things changed. The “News” Stations got more and more left and I just stopped enjoying the spin that was on everything.

I tried the conservative stations, and they were mostly people screaming all the time.

I settled on the Spa Channel and enjoyed it. It was pretty much the only channel I listened to. LA Freeway traffic is stressful and that channel seemed to be mellow all the time.  Except when Sirius decided to stop playing Spa and play something they thought was important. A George Michael week? Ugh!

As to many of their other stations, I simply wasn’t interested. I don’t like RAP. I couldn’t stand their ideas of a nice Rock & Roll set. Talk radio was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard, and many of their other “Themed” stations were either annoying or completely mis-named.  No matter what, I always ended up on the Spa channel, and after a while, I stopped even checking out the other stations.

I’d purchased a lifetime subscription for my 1 Series and enjoyed never having to think about the Spa channel being on if I wanted it.

When the car was totaled in 2017 Sirius told me that I couldn’t have the subscription transferred to another car. (More on that later.) 

I went ahead and activated Sirius in the new car, and when I changed to the 440 I transferred that subscription. 

That transfer process was a nightmare and I really thought about pulling the plug more than once during that call.

Late in December 2020, I got an email saying that there was a class action lawsuit regarding Sirius and their lifetime subscriptions. With all the chaos around the election, my life, being unemployed, and oh yeah, my health insurance being cancelled. I never got back to the Sirius email. There is, after all only so much time you can spend on the damn phone before you’re over it!

What I didn’t notice was that the deadline to respond was Jan 12th 2021. Somehow I thought it as the end of January… I missed the deadline of Jan 12th. DAMNIT!

But I got to thinking about the Sirius subscription. 

With fingers crossed, I went to their site and OMG! My id and password actually worked. 

(This was surprising since the last few times I’d tried to log on, I was met with password and user ID issues.  These issues persisted even after multiple password resets. This is part of what made my last phone call to Sirius such a pain in the butt. Well, that and the fact that like so many companies they’ve put their call center in the Philippines so with a static filled connection and sing song English. Having a conversation is a challenge.)

Once I was logged into the page I saw the last bill which looked normal. Then I happened to notice that Sirius had changed the billing cycle from 1 year to quarterly. 

They were clever… They kept the amount the same but increased their profit X 3 with the quarterly billing. Great way to rip off your customers Sirius! 

Obviously, they were counting on the amount being familiar, and people’s short term memory being completely overloaded to hide what they’d done.

Now I’m very interested!

I call their customer service number, (conveniently hidden 3 menu items deep, with a warning popup that said, “Beware of Tiger!”) 

I waited on hold after dealing with the genuine people emulator call routing AI.  After a time, I was connected to a cheerful lady in the Philippines and asked her what gives?

I’m told that I was on some kind of promotion and that this reflected the end of the promotion. Uh Huh… When did the billing cycle change?  No answer. Uh Huh. 

Then I asked about putting my lifetime membership back in place which is what the lawsuit provides for. 

I get a bullshit line about that. In 2017 they claim they weren’t allowing lifetime subscriptions to be moved. I told the little lady I knew that, but that the lawsuit says they will now.  She doesn’t know about that.

She offered to give me a promotional special for a year on the two radios (Portable & Car) of $200. I tell her that since I only listen to one channel it’s still not worth it. And that Apple CarPlay works just fine in my car meaning I don’t have to have Sirius and that I have greater control over the music I want to hear.

She asked if I’d let her check another promotion.  I say sure why not?  She comes back and tells me that I have have both radios for $120 a year.

I think about it, and decide that I just want to not have a subscription at all. I tell her that and that I want the subscription to terminate as of the March 1st billing cycle. She fiddles around a bit more and tells me that she’s sorry she couldn’t keep a valued customer like me. I’m Like Whatever… I obviously wasn’t all that valued a customer.

So come March 1 2021 for the first time in many many years I won’t have Sirius.  Unless of course the court decides I can have my lifetime membership transferred. In that case, I’m calling them back with the case docket number in hand and demanding they re-instate the account.

In reality, I’d pay $60 a year for Sirius in the car. But now it’s a matter of principal.

I’ve said it before, If companies would just provide the service they’ve contracted to provide at a fair price, and not screw around with the billing because they think they can get away with it, they’d have a lot more customers and those customers would be a lot more loyal and happy.

On the plus side, It’s one less online account for me to fart around with.

Update 1/22/2020

I got one of those little “How did we do” surveys fromSiriusXM

When I answered that I was not satisfied, the survey opened a tex block where I could freely type. I do hope that someone who reads this is able to understand the words written on the page. I’m not hopeful. There’s that old adage, if you don’t want to know the truth… Don’t ask the question.

I never got an answer as to who authorized or when they authorized a change to quarterly billing. 

I was told that I couldn’t reactivate that lifetime subscription on my new vehicle because the transfer wasn’t available in 2017,  regardless of the fact that I had a lifetime subscription, and there is currently a class action lawsuit pending about not allowing people transfer those subscriptions to new vehicles. 

Then when I said that for the 2 stations that I listen to (1 in my car and the other on a portable radio in the house) wasn’t worth $423 a year and that I wanted to cancel the account, I’m told that suddenly there’s a discount of 50% and when that wasn’t good enough the yearly cost was reduced again. 

Frankly, if you’d offered your service for a fair price in the first place and been upfront about your billing practices I’d still be a customer. 

However, given that you won’t let me transfer my former lifetime subscription and apparently have no trouble charging outrageous fees for your service it makes me question your business model.

I have Apple CarPlay in my vehicle which works just fine. I have Apple music and can use it throughout my home on all my devices. This ability makes your service redundant and excessively expensive.

For many years now, the few times I’ve called your customer service department it is difficult to understand the representative. In part due to the accent but the greatest part of the problem is static on the line or background noise in the call center’s environment.

The young lady I spoke with, to her credit tried to do the best she could and aside from the noise she was well spoken. My dissatisfaction is in NO WAY with her. 

My dissatisfaction is with SiriusXM’s corporate policies and practices. 

My feeling now is that I will not be purchasing a vehicle where I pay for the SiriusXM option installed. I will also not be turning on the SiriusXM option if it is supplied with a vehicle.

I will continue to seek out Apple CarPlay or some similar option.

I can only imagine that as your satellites age, and you continue to alienate customers that you will find it harder and harder to maintain service. Perhaps that is a good thing and your company will go the way of the dodo.

Posted on

The End of an Era…

For many years, I’ve maintained a VIP membership at a gym in Orange County.

As part of that membership I had access to the VIP locker room. This was not the locker room you’d be familiar with if you attend a “normal” gym.

This locker room was all wood. It had a private Jacuzzi, wet & dry saunas, private access to the pool, and ample sinks and mirrors, where it was not uncommon to see 8 to 10 men shaving in the morning and often in the evenings if they were going out on a date.

We all had private lockers, towel service, the gym would wash our dirty workout clothes and leave them in our lockers when finished. There was fresh coffee, and fresh fruit available in a lounge area that seated 10 around a big screen TV usually tuned to the financial news or on weekends to one of the various games. They even had a place where you could drop off your laundry and pick it up a couple days later all conveniently billed to your Gym account with a monthly itemized statement delivered to your locker.

Occasionally one of the guys would bring his son or sons into the gym and the locker room to change clothes, or shower after father and son(s) worked out or used the pool. No-one paid any mind as long as the youngster wasn’t misbehaving. It was a place of Men.

In a time when places for Men were disappearing and feminism was taking it’s toll on even Barber Shops, it was a place that was a welcome sanctuary from the hubbub of the business day. I can’t count how many business deals I heard being closed in the lounge chairs over coffee or a cool post workout smoothie.

I spent many happy hours in that locker room. Sometimes finishing a report for work, but more often just starting my day there.

I’d drive to the gym, workout, shower, shave, have breakfast, then walk across the street to work. Sometimes I’d start and end my day at the gym, using cardio to burn the frustrations of the day away waiting for traffic to die down.

The gym had regular locker-rooms for men and women too. But I was worth the added expense and really enjoyed the VIP locker room because it was always quiet and comfortable. I guess you could call it a “Safe Space”.

The Gym itself had a pro shop, dining area, the usual array of weight machines, free weight areas, racquet ball and basketball courts, spin classes, yoga, aerobic studios, conference rooms (that you could reserve a month in advance), a hair salon, child care for the kids who were too young or not interested in working out with Dad or Mom. It was a big place and for a time, only the best of the best trainers got to work there.

While trying to figure out when the Gym would re-open due to COVID I discovered that my gym would never re-open.

24 Hour Fitness is in bankruptcy and apparently my gym was one of the casualties of their default, 130 gyms in all.

There’d been no notice, no email, no letter… nothing. This left me wondering where, when, and how I’d get my things from my locker. I tried calling corporate and all I got was a recording telling me that due to COVID there was no one to talk to. I wrote a strongly worded letter to corporate and heard nothing.

Last Friday, I got an email from 24 Hour Fitness telling me that I needed to call the number provided as soon as possible, to collect my things. I called the number Monday and made arrangements to drive down to grab my gear.

It almost wasn’t worth it. One shoe, my workout clothes, racquet balls, and all my toiletries were missing. They did manage to get my shower shoes, my racquet ball racquet, and my favorite yoga mat into a big plastic trash bag. They had no idea about the other items or why they’d not made it into the bag. Except for the racquet, the drive to OC was almost not worth making.

24 Hour Fitness, is giving me a great rate on their All Gym package in consideration of the closure. I can literally go to any of their gyms which is no different than what my membership always provided.

It won’t be the same. I’ll have to hump my shit to and from the gym, fiddle with a padlock and remember what locker I put my shit in when I’m done with my workout. I know this is the normal way gyms work but I’ve tasted better, and I liked it. I liked walking into the gym like a zombie, getting my stuff out of my locker dressing to work out and actually waking up at some point during my workout. I liked going to the locker room and having a cup of coffee before I showered and got on with my day.

That’s all a thing of the past now. I haven’t made any decision yet about the membership. I think it’s best to let the wound scab over a bit.

The gym where I picked up my stuff was strange. No music, no TVs. It’s a nice place, but felt strange. People on cardio machines with their masks on, their earbuds in their ears listening to their own groove from phones or pads in front of them. Few people were using the weights, and those who’d completed their workouts left the gym sweaty and disheveled. The locker room was empty as I made my way through to the bathroom. It was like a weird movie. Everyone silent and isolated, even in a crowd.

I’m not sure that I’ll be maintaining the membership. I don’t like this version of “Normal”

It occurred to me that I have no ties left with OC other than one remaining friend there.

OC used to be a big part of my world. I worked there, my doctor was there, I drank there, and played there. Now OC is just another place that I used to know, but don’t goto anymore. Los Angeles, Hollywood, and The Valley all have this same feeling. Places I used to goto but don’t anymore. Palm Springs is starting to feel like this too. Distant, broken, alien.

I’m beginning to think, for me, this is more than COVID fatigue. It’s something deeper.

Posted on

It’s Due to COVID…

“Due to the ongoing pandemic crisis we have made changes to our enterprise systems to protect your health and the health of our employees. This may cause longer than usual wait times. For faster service please use our voice prompt system or our website. If the answer you’re looking for is not available please continue to hold…”

Alright, I call BULLSHIT!

First of all I as a customer don’t care. Whatever you’re doing to protect your employees is your business. It’s between you and your employees. This is especially true if I’m calling someone like a credit card service or my insurance company. I DON’T see you people in person EVER!

Second of all, I’ve been noticing that there are a lot more errors. Errors in Billing, Errors in shipments, Errors in services rendered.

And when I call folks on those errors, the response is “Oh well with COVID, blah blah blah” The problem is, computers don’t get COVID. COVID doesn’t suddenly and mysteriously change due dates, causing late charges on credit bills. Someone commanded that change but it wasn’t COVID.

COVID doesn’t add two days to shipping in the one second between the time I click on “Checkout” and the time I press “PAY”. If you’re going to quote me a delivery date on my whole order, then split that order and space it out of 4 days after I’ve pressed PAY and entered my credit card info just quote me the real date not some fiction.

“But it’s due to COVID”

NO, IT ISN’T!

You know what’s in your warehouses and you also know how long the shit I order is going to take to get to me.

Somewhere in the billing systems for credit cards there’s an algorithm that says, “If customer pays bill two weeks ahead of schedule, then adjust Due Date to three weeks earlier.” Deposit collected late fees in account marked “Profit Skim”.

A second algorithm says note in customer account for representative. “If customer calls to complain reverse charges and allow customer to choose new billing date. Blame it on COVID”

The hope in the case of the credit card companies is that most people won’t call ‘em on it and will just pay the late fee, assuming that they (the customer) made a mistake.

The best case scenario for the credit card company is that the customer won’t notice it at all, and is an auto pay customer. If they pay a fixed amount monthly, then the unpaid late charges generate another full amount late fee that continues to add up month over month until the entire monthly payment is consumed in late fees but nothing is applying toward the actual debt. 

Once that happens the late fee cycle resets causing the customer to essentially make no headway towards paying off their debt.

My plan is to pay off all the credit cards and not have more than one. I prefer CASH or debit card transactions. I’ll keep one credit card for those weird life emergencies. But I’m cutting up cards as quickly as I can. 

COVID has become the Catch All phrase that is supposed to be the acceptable excuse for whatever someone has screwed up.

I’m sick of it. 

Own your screwups, don’t blame your mess on a virus that appears to be 99% survivable without intervention.

Yeah 1% of the population is a big freakin number. But to date, less than 1% of the population has died and the financial computer systems are still running.

It’s funny that for all the mistakes I’ve been seeing, I’m still getting the bills. You’d think that at least one of these institutions would have an outage that takes out their billing wouldn’t you?

Grrrr!

Posted on

Sadly Portland you’re dead to me

Much like Seattle and San Francisco.

Portland at least grew it’s own roses for the funeral.

It’s really simple. As beautiful as these cities are from the air, and they are beautiful, I have ZERO desire to visit them. Why the hell would I knowingly walk into cities where I’m not only a target, but where I can’t be responsible for my own protection and the police have been gutted?

Why would I want to visit one of these cities now? Places where the wrong word or the slightest of incorrect reactions could get you beaten by a mob?

Doesn’t do much for your tourism does it?

57 Days and nights of rioting? Really?

You people are out of your damn minds. And even if the rioting stops (and it will), the people responsible for all this civil unrest will still be there, just below the surface, waiting for another excuse, or opportunity to mete out their particular brand so-called justice.

Seattle, and San Francisco are no better. Los Angeles is heading the same direction. Los Angeles is slightly different because it’s always been a dangerous place. You know what you’re getting into there, and you never travel in certain districts alone or at night.

I remember a scene from Logan’s Run. The hero and pretty girl are heading to a part of the city overrun with rabid children. There’s a voice from their conveyance repeating, “Warning, You are now entering a personal hazard zone,”

That’s how I feel every time I go into Los Angeles. A similar message should be playing on every flight landing in cities in the Pacific Northwest.

I don’t know anymore what these people are rioting about. I don’t know the cause of their lawlessness and further… I don’t give a shit. They can burn their homes and cities to the ground, then start slaughtering each other, over scraps of bread or some imagined insult or lack of respect. I don’t care.

If the feds march in and just start shooting the rioters, I won’t shed a single tear. Nor will I be shocked. In fact I might make popcorn and watch the show.

This is what happens when stupidity, lawlessness, and anarchy are allowed to go on for too long. It loses its impact, and the original message is long since forgotten.

All I see now is people who look and behave like they’re straight out of Fallujah. In my eyes they are no longer human, or worth saving. They’ve become rabid animals and the only way to deal with that, is to put the animals out of their misery.

I would enjoy seeing the Mayors, Governors, and so called city leaders literally ripped apart by the very rioters they’ve been making endless excuses for. They’d serve as an object lesson to other weak willed political leaders.

I know I sound harsh.

I worry for my friends in Portland because the bullshit is happening right there outside their apartments. I’ve told them it isn’t going to get any better until someone steps up and says “NO MORE”.

My friends respond with, “It’s better today… The ‘protesters’ only burned one dumpster and broke only a few windows.”

That blows my mind. My friends are starting to exhibit Stockholm Syndrome. They’re grading the quality of their days not by there being no violence, but by the level of violence that has become constant.

That’s like saying it was a good weekend in Chicago. There were only 35 shootings instead of 37. What!? That there were any shootings in Chicago is a concern, more so since shootings are so commonplace that no-one takes much notice. That speaks to a much more serious problem.

A rather large problem that no-one is talking about.

What about the rights of the people who live at ground zero? Don’t they have the right to live in a safe and secure place? Why do “Protesters” and I use that term loosely get a pass to make everyone suffer? How insane is it that normal average people are fearful leaving their homes?

It’s way past time for LAW AND ORDER to be reinstated. If that means bodies of protesters in the streets, so be it. At this point while the media would loose its shit, I bet that the majority of America would stand up and cheer.

Posted on

You can take your “New Normal” and shove it!

This “New Normal” as it’s called is bugging the shit out of me, and I think it’s built on nothing more than fear itself.

I’ve had a belly full of it. It’s starting to damage my calm.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is live my life in peace and unfettered by bullshit.

Now, in this “New Normal” I have bullshit aplenty.

Riots, burning, and looting are not normal.
Wearing a mask everywhere isn’t normal.
Eliminating Police isn’t normal.
Avoiding large areas of cities, towns, & parks out of fear of being caught up in violence or some protest thats roving around, isn’t normal.
Autonomous zones aren’t normal.

I refuse to submit to your version of “normal” 

So all you Media Morons & Politicians; Take your fearful NEW NORMAL and shove it up your ass sideways! Grow a pair, and bring this shit to heal.