New York sues SiriusXM, accusing company of making it deliberately hard to cancel subscriptions

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general filed suit Wednesday against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming service of making it intentionally difficult for its customers to cancel their subscriptions.

Attorney General Latitia James’ office said an investigation into complaints from customers found that SiriusXM forced subscribers to wait in an automated system before often lengthy interactions with agents who were trained in ways to avoid accepting a request to cancel service.

“Having to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription is a stressful burden no one looks forward to, and when companies make it hard to cancel subscriptions, it’s illegal,” the attorney general said in a statement.

The company disputed the claims, arguing that many of the lengthy interaction times cited in the lawsuit were based on a 2020 inquiry and were caused in part by the effects of the pandemic on their operations. The company said many of its plans can be canceled with a simple click of a button online.

Attorney General Letitia James' Statement

LEDZeppelin,

Fuck SiriusXM. I made a mistake of signing up for their free trial and spent countless hours to cancel the “free trial”. Had to get my credit card provider involved. Will never do business with XM again. I wish my car had an option to remove the fucking chip.

shalafi,

“…it’s illegal,” the attorney general said in a statement.”

So why is no one in jail? If I break the law, the state must sue me to enforce?

JokeDeity,

I literally will not sign up for any subscriptions anymore without using privacy.com.

Veraxus,
Veraxus avatar

I'm in California, where it is legally required for them to provide an online cancellation if that's how you signed up.

They have a cancellation link, but if you click it, it takes you to a fake error page.

Zak8022,

I feel like this is about 10 years too late. I didn’t know they were even still around. My wife and I had a similarly tough time canceling.

vanderbilt,
@vanderbilt@beehaw.org avatar

It took 45 minutes for me to cancel. 15 for their crappy agent software to queue me, then 30 minutes of an agent asking me in 20 different ways whether I wanted to buy more SiriusXM. I had to say “no I just want to cancel” so many times I started copying and pasting it into chat. I canceled it because I moved somewhere I always had cell reception. Maybe if I moved back into a rural area I would have gotten it again - except it was so shitty to cancel I would never ever sign back up. I would rather sit in silence.

NoneYa,

They should have included gyms as part of this.

I will never sign up with Planet Fitness ever again.

The law should be that however you can sign up should be how you can cancel. If you can sign up online or at any gym and use any other gym, then you should be able to cancel online or at any gym.

PF told me I had to go to the PF I joined up at. Doesn’t matter that I moved 70 miles away. The only exception is to send a specific letter in a specific way to that location and then you’ll supposedly get it canceled.

Fuck companies that do that. You make plenty off people forgetting they have a membership. Least you can do is let the smart ones off when they ask politely.

weasel5053,

SiriusXM sucks ass

BenVimes, (edited )

My first attempt to cancel my SiriusXM subscription saw the agent tell me that it was “impossible” because I had “just renewed.” It was true that I had recently renewed, but only because I had forgotten to cancel it in time. Since that was my mistake I was willing to just let it go and just use the service another year. But in order to stop that from happening again, I wanted to cancel early, which they didn’t let me do.

My second attempt three months later saw the agent protest again, saying that I should call back when it was closer to renewal. This time I put my foot down and got them to cancel my renewal.

Or so I thought.

I finally had to call them again eight months later after I started getting emails hyping up my impending renewal. It seems that instead of outright canceling, they had instead put a note on my file to cancel at a later date - a note I’m presuming they were going to ignore.

Maybe their system really did make it impossible for front-line agents to cancel to far out from the renewal date. That would explain the agents’ behaviour, and if true it makes SiriusXM look even worse

Definitely the worst experience I’ve ever had trying to cancel a subscription.

fushuan,

That’s so stupid. If you cancelled right after renewing they should not only let you cancel but also let you keep the service for the time you paid for.

wrath_of_grunge,
wrath_of_grunge avatar

really? i've been using SXM for over a decade. i've never seen a company that is so desperate to keep their customers. they'll do pretty much anything you ask of them.

tired of paying the bill? then don't. they'll cut it off after a few months. then they'll call and be willing to forgive the past bill, cut you back on, and you probably won't even have to pay it for another month or two.

whenever whatever deal i'm on expires, i simply call them up and tell them i'm thinking about cancelling. they'll usually offer something like service for $5 a month, if i'll pay for 6 months at a time or something.

i've never had even a hint of trouble with them in the last decade.

hydrospanner,

They do both.

When I bought my car in 2015 it came with the free trial but I specifically did not sign up for a subscription. When the trial ran out they started hounding me and I basically struck a deal: I’ll get a year subscription but if and only if you invoice me. Mail me a bill in the mail and I will write you a check and mail it to you or make a one time payment on your site. No auto-enrollment.

The first two years they did this no problem. The third year they put up a big fuss and told me that wasn’t something that was possible. I asked how it was possible for the past two years and he said I must have misunderstood. So I said okay, if that’s not possible then I guess I’m done with Sirius and hung up. A few days later I got another email and called in again and asked that rep for the invoice option and she said while it’s not commonly done, she’d make an exception for me.

The year after that I tried three different reps and nobody would invoice me so I cancelled and haven’t signed up since. They still sent me mail and email for years, and somehow they fucked up their database and when my parents bought their car (same make, different model) now I’m getting all of their ad email from Sirius again, but they did stop (intentionally) emailing me after about two years of no contact.

downpunxx,
downpunxx avatar

every single bit of what you wrote is more than a "hint" that the company is terrible, and you shouldn't deal with them at all, ever, in any way shape or form, lol

dan1101,

Yeah they seem desperate to have the subscriber numbers. I get really tired of the song and dance negotiations once a year but it’s not hard to get months for free or worst case $5 per month. I’ve always felt if they would just give everyone the $5 a month deal they would have more subscribers and probably more money.

ViscountMochi,

I sold my car that had a satellite enabled radio and bought a car that didn’t. I actually wanted to keep my subscription but change it to a streaming only plan. I tried at least 3 times to get that set up and each time I thought we were good it turned out that we weren’t. I eventually got fed up enough to cancel my sub outright. I get an email every day with a new deal for a streaming only plan but there’s no way I’ll go back after that experience.

RaoulDook,

Good work NY AG

I have dealt with their bullshit too and can confirm that it is a bullshit hassle to cancel their shitty satellite radio service

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t know how people listen to satellite radio for music, the bitrate is horrible.

sylver_dragon,

Not just hard, outright fraudulent.
A decade or so ago, my wife got a subscription with her new car. When the “free” period was set to expire, she called them up and specifically stated that she wanted to cancel. They went though the obligatory, “but we can get you this great deal”. She stayed firm and insisted they cancel it. A couple days later, Sirius charged our credit card for a year’s subscription. Thankfully, when I called and explained to a manager that either they could reverse the charge or I could have my lawyer call and ask them to reverse the charge, they agreed to do it. But fuck, that should not have been necessary. SiriusXM can go die in a fire.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, you shouldn’t even need to call. Just have an option to manage the subscription online or in the car. Keep customers by offering a great product at a great price, not with tricks…

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Deliberately hard and man, once you are on their list they WILL NOT go away.

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