SiriusXM Sued Over ‘Illegal’ Cancelation Process, New York Attorney General Says

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Canceling a SiriusXM subscription isn’t just annoying — it’s illegal, according to a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general.

New York Attorney General Letitia James this week filed a lawsuit against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming audio company of “trapping consumers” in subscriptions and “maintaining deliberately long and burdensome cancellation processes.” An investigation by James’ office 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 lawsuit alleges that SiriusXM violated state and federal laws concerning subscriptions that renew automatically by failing to provide subscribers with a cancelation mechanism that is “simple, timely and easy to use.” In addition, the suit alleges that SiriusXM engaged in fraud and deception by misleading subscribers seeking to cancel their accounts. “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,” James said in a statement.

In response, a SiriusXM spokesperson said, “Like a number of consumer businesses, we offer a variety of options for customers to sign up for or cancel their SiriusXM subscription and, upon receiving and reviewing the complaint, we intend to vigorously defend against these baseless allegations that grossly mischaracterize SiriusXM’s practices.” SiriusXM had about 34 million subscribers as of Sept.