New York Attorney General Letitia James today sued SiriusXM Radio, Inc. (SiriusXM) for trapping consumers in subscriptions and maintaining deliberately long cancellation processes. Through this lawsuit, Attorney General James seeks restitution, penalties, and disgorgement from SiriusXM for violating New York’s business laws.
An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that SiriusXM forces its subscribers to call or chat online with an agent to cancel a subscription, then deliberately draws out those interactions as part of its strategy to prevent subscribers from canceling. The OAG also found that the company trains its agents to not take “no” for an answer when customers try to cancel, making it difficult for consumers to end their subscriptions.
“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,” said Attorney General James. “Consumers should be able to cancel a subscription they no longer use or need without any issues, and companies have a legal duty to make their cancellation process easy. New Yorkers can trust that when companies like SiriusXM try to take advantage of them and violate the law, my office will step in to stop them.”
SiriusXM is an audio entertainment company headquartered in New York City and has approximately 35 million subscribers, of which nearly 2 million are New Yorkers. The OAG opened an investigation into the company after hundreds of consumers reported to OAG and other agencies that they could not cancel their subscription. In affidavits submitted to OAG, consumers described how difficult it was to cancel subscriptions they no longer used or wished to pay for. In one affidavit, handwritten by a consumer on behalf of her 92-year-old mother, described a maddening phone call with a SiriusXM agent that lasted nearly 40 minutes.
The OAG’s investigation found that the company trains its agents to keep customers on the phone or in the chat for a lengthy six-part conversation that includes asking a series of questions and then pitching the subscriber as many as five retention offers, all to delay cancellation. According to SiriusXM’s own data, it takes subscribers an average of 11.5 minutes to cancel by phone, and 30 minutes to cancel online, although for many subscribers it takes far longer. Subscribers often spend substantial time waiting to be connected with an agent, with wait times that regularly reach more than 20 minutes for online chat agents.
Through her lawsuit, Attorney General James seeks full restitution for all impacted subscribers nationwide, including compensation for the time SiriusXM wasted by putting its subscribers through a deliberately lengthy cancellation process. Attorney General James also seeks disgorgement, penalties, and costs, and to require SiriusXM to implement a simple and easy-to-use cancellation process.
Attorney General James asks any consumers who have been affected by SiriusXM’s cancellation practices, or the deceptive or fraudulent cancellation practices of any other automatic-renewal service, to file a consumer complaint online.
