NEW YORK — SiriusXM will have to change its cancellation policies in New York State.
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued SiriusXM in 2023, accusing them of making it difficult for customers to cancel their subscription. An investigation was started after the attorney general's office said they received hundreds of complaints, not just to their office, but to other agencies as well, that they couldn't cancel their subscription.
The Office of Attorney General (OAG) found during their investigation that SiriusXM would require their subscribers to call or chat with one of their agents in order to cancel their subscription, and that the agents were trained to not take 'no' for an answer. They say this strategy was preventing customers from canceling their subscriptions.
One subscriber, according to the OAG, described how a SiriusXM agent kept them on a for 40 minutes, repeatedly and clearly asking the agent to cancel their account. The OAG says SiriusXM continued to charge the subscriber.
“No one should have to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription, and any company that forces customers to jump through unnecessary hoops to end their subscriptions is breaking the law,” said Attorney General James in a press release. “This decision found SiriusXM illegally created a complicated cancellation process for its New York customers, forcing them to spend significant amounts of time speaking with agents who refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. My office sued SiriusXM to protect consumers, and as a result of our actions, they will have to simplify their cancellation process to stop taking advantage of New Yorkers.”
New York State Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank found SiriusXM violated the federal Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) with their cancellation procedure. The judge ordered SiriusXM to change their cancellation procedures in New York to make sure customers have a simple method to cancel subscriptions and that they are no longer required to chat with a live agent to cancel.
