Even though this company has an an active website which invites new accounts, I have found it impossible to subscribe as a new customer. My experience would sound humorous were it part of a Monty Python sketch, but in reality is a waste of time and very frustrating. Before I tried another attempt maybe next month, I started to wonder if they were that bad to deal with when they had not got my credit card number, what might it be like if I became successful at signing on as a customer. With that in mind my research led me to this board and saved me from becoming another victim thanks it's contributors.
My experience was that over the last year or so I have visited their website in an attempt to subscribe, but each time there has been a statement that none of the radios were available. I recently checked it again and the site at last stated an in stock condition, so I started the order procedure only to be foiled at the shopping cart stage with a new "out of stock" notation. I then phoned XM and tried to find out when and if they would be in stock and even though I had explained that I wanted to subscribe I wanted to order both subscription and radio at the same time. they stated that they had to have the serial no in order to activate the radio. I reiterated my request and reasoned with them that a subscription was no good to me without a radio, and when might they be available. The person was very difficult to understand as English was not his native language, but did not want to listen when I kept asking him when the radio would be available as this seemed irrelevant to him. We just kept going in circles, so I hung up. Thinking that maybe he was the janitor I tried calling back about half hour later, but just prior to this opened their web page, and this time it did state "unavailable' on the product page. Bottom line was that although I got through to a different person I had very much a similar experience to the first one, but in the end did tell me that the radios would be available the following morning. I told him in that case I will place an order the next day through their website once I verified availability there.

The next day sure enough the website again stated "unavailable". I thought I would call one last time and it was answered by a woman who acted just as stupid as the other two men. I asked to speak to a supervisor and after another five minutes on hold another man came on the line, who again had difficulty with the language and once again asked be for the number on the radio, so we went through the whole thing another time. He then said that the radio was available and then changed his mind saying it was not but they had another model. I asked what was different about it to the one I had been trying to order and he told me he did not know. I asked him if I would be able to connect it with my home stereo receiver without having to buy and extras like powersupplies or antenna. He replied that it would work ok. However the price was nearly double that of the one that was still unavailable, so I again asked him what made it worth the extra. I then started to realize that by continuing with this I was more of a fool than he was.