A lawsuit has been filed against SiriusXM for allegedly trapping customers with unwanted subscriptions

New York
CNN
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SiriusXM is the target of a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General’s Office that accuses the satellite radio company of trapping customers in subscriptions and finding ways to prevent them from doing so. Cancellation.

On Wednesday, New York AG Letitia James announced it was filing a lawsuit against SiriusXM after an investigation found that the company “forces its subscribers to call or chat online with an agent to unsubscribe, and then intentionally withdraws those interactions as part of its strategy” to prevent subscribers from unsubscribing. Their packages.

In a press release, James said the company’s hard cancellation process was illegal.

“Consumers should be able to cancel a subscription they no longer use or need without any problems, and businesses have a legal duty to facilitate the cancellation process,” James said. “New Yorkers can trust that when companies like SiriusXM try to take advantage and break the law, my office will step in to stop them.”

SiriusXM did not immediately respond for comment.

James’ office said it also found that SiriusXM trains its agents not to take “no” for an answer when customers unsubscribe. Agents do this by keeping customers on the phone for a “six-part long conversation” that includes several questions and making retention offers in an attempt to keep them from canceling.

The investigation was opened after “hundreds of customers” reported complaints about the company’s difficult cancellation process.

In one example provided by James, a SiriusXM agent allegedly kept a customer in an online chat for 40 minutes despite his “clear and repeated” requests to cancel and continued to charge him afterward, even though the customer canceled. SiriusXM claimed it “was unable to identify any cancellation request” from the customer, James said.

SiriusXM can opt out with a “simple click of a button,” noting that conversation times of 11.5 minutes on the phone or up to half an hour online are not necessary, according to the investigation’s findings.

James is seeking damages for harmed customers, penalties against the company for the alleged fraud and damages for violations of New York laws. It also wants to require SiriusXM to “implement a simple, user-friendly cancellation process.”

Customers affected by similar issues are encouraged to contact us Report problems To James’s office.

SiriusXM (Siri) has about 35 million subscribers, including two million in New York. Earlier this year, The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule This would allow Americans to more easily cancel free trials and subscriptions they no longer want.