XM Radio has no idea what they’re about to do to themselves. Before I tell you what that is, a brief history lesson:
There’s a huge scandal going around right now regarding the corporate censorship of hosts of Opie and Anthony, a popular show on XM radio. The entire fuss is over a bit they did where a “bum” talked about raping the president’s wife, Secretary of State Rice, and Queen Elizabeth. When they were suspended for it, thousands of angry customers called in to XM radio to cancel, not necessarily in support of the show, but because XM advertised that its content is not censored.
To the surprise of many, people are now reporting that XM is not actually canceling accounts, but rather giving free credits (a few months). People are angry because they are trying to make a statement with their cancellation, and XM is trying to float their subscriber numbers for their shareholder meeting on the 25th.
I say, awesome. Let them commit fraud or whatever. If they really do keep these customers around for the next few months, there is a great opportunity to get even.
My advice is simple: Wait for the credits to expire and then issue a chargeback the moment they bill you. When they contact you about renewal, do not respond, react, type a reply, or say a word. Just hang up, delete the email, or trash the letter. If they are stupid enough to bill your account without your explicit consent, you have the full right to issue a chargeback, and your bank will side with you. Simply call up your bank and tell them you canceled the service months ago.
Most people don’t realize it, but chargebacks have huge penalties associated with them. While fraudulent chargebacks don’t really count in, a legitimate chargeback hurts. It usually comes with a $10-$30 processing fee. What people don’t know is that if a merchant has a large spike in chargebacks, they are assessed a secondary fine. This is in place to curb large scale merchant fraud or shoddy business practices where merchants take processing fees into account as a cost of business. This secondary fine is not as small and friendly as the processing fee…
I’m talking about millions of dollars in penalties applied directly to XM’s bottom line.
So be happy they haven’t canceled your account. Mark it on your calendars and screw over XM in six months.