Same SiriusXM song and dance

So I once again received my annual SiriusXM renewal which once again was a ridiculous $283 for an annual subscription.  Of course I had no intent of paying that much so I did the same thing I have done the last five or six years, threaten to cancel.  My last interaction with Sirius, like many of them over the years, was pretty shitty when I transferred my service over to the radio in the Tacoma., so I wasn’t looking forward to another phone interaction.

It’s a pretty simple process, when you get into the phone menu you select the cancellation option which puts you in the queue to talk to a live person.  I have given my speech so many times it comes out very easily.  Basically I say I received my renewal notice, I can’t afford to pay that much and I would like to cancel my subscription if I can’t pay the same rate I paid the prior year.  Saying you “want to cancel” is the key phrase.  Once I said that my rate magically was cut almost in half.  I’ll be paying roughly $145 for the year subscription, once again.  I was also pleased that the phone rep this time around wasn’t an asshole.

Today is Amazon Prime day so if you are an avid Amazon customer you may be able to score some sweet deals.  Our Amazon Echo and Dots continue to amaze us with the new features that are added on a regular basis.  We voice ordered a couple early Prime deals last night and the Echo will give us a voice notification of shipping updates as they occur.

The Alexa calling feature that was recently added is pretty cool, it’s like a PA system for the home.  Cindy used it last night to open up a two way voice channel to me as I was sitting in the office while she was driving home from teaching a class.  Of course if you are concerned about privacy, having a device that is constantly listening is not going to be for you.  However if you are like me and operate on the premise that there is no real privacy in today’s world, you just roll with it.