Judge rules Sirius XM's policy for customers canceling subscriptions broke law

Sirius XM violated federal law by requiring customers to deal with a live agent when canceling a subscription, a judge in Manhattan ruled in a lawsuit filed by the New York State attorney general.

State Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank found the satellite radio provider’s process violated the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act by failing to making canceling a subscription as easy as signing up and not offering cancellation through the same mediums as registration, according to the decision released Thursday. Sirius XM conceded that it required customers to contact a phone or chat operator who makes retention offers before allowing a customer to cancel, court records show.

“It is not disputed that [Sirius XM allows] for a customer to sign up to a subscription without interacting with a live agent but requires that a customer do just that in order to cancel,” Frank wrote. “Given the inevitable wait times that come with a live customer service agent, and the … undisputed fact that [Sirius XM] agents first go through an evaluation and offer process with the customer before proceeding to cancel, their cancellation procedure is clearly not as easy to use as the initiation method.”

Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that the decision will force the Manhattan-based company, which has more than 2 million subscribers in New York State, to simplify its cancellation process.

“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,” James said in the statement.

Frank’s order also directs an assessment of damages against Sirius XM

Frank ruled in favor of the satellite radio provider, however, on several other claims by the attorney general, including that the cancellation policies and procedures constitute fraud and deceit, court records show.

"The Court dismissed almost all of the charges against Sirius XM, and found that Sirius XM’s policies were neither misleading nor deceptive," Sirius XM said in a statement to Newsday. "Most importantly, the Court ruled that Sirius XM had shown through 'a plethora of material … that they have taken repeated steps to avoid creating such an atmosphere' of fraud or deceit."

Sirius XM said it intends to appeal the portion of the ruling decided in favor of the Attorney General's Office. 

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The attorney general filed the lawsuit in response to hundreds of complaints filed by its customers, according to a press release. An investigation by the attorney general’s office found Sirius XM trains its employees to follow a six-step series of questions to keep customers on the phone or in a chat “until they either relent or become frustrated,” the AG’s office alleged.

Investigators with the attorney general’s office obtained affidavits from a pair of customers who said an agent kept them on the phone for nearly 40 minutes, according to the press release. In one of those instances, Sirius XM “continued to charge the customer anyway,” the attorney general's office said.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.