- cross-posted to:
- tech@kbin.social
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.
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My dad once thought he cancelled and realized he was still paying it for six months later.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.