Judge rules Sirius XM’s annoying cancellation process is illegal

A New York justice has determined that SiriusXM’s “long and burdensome” cancellation process is illegal. In a ruling connected Thursday, Judge Lyle Frank recovered SiriusXM violates a national instrumentality that requires companies to marque it casual to cancel a subscription.

The determination comes astir 1 twelvemonth aft New York Attorney General Leticia James sued SiriusXM implicit claims the company makes subscriptions hard to cancel. Following an investigation, the Office of the Attorney General recovered that the institution attempts to hold cancellations by having customers telephone an agent, who past keeps them connected the telephone for serval minutes portion “pitching the subscriber arsenic galore arsenic 5 retention offers.”

As outlined successful the ruling, Judge Frank recovered that SiriusXM broke the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires companies to instrumentality “simple mechanisms” to cancel a subscription. “Their cancellation process is intelligibly not arsenic casual to usage arsenic the initiation method,” Judge Frank writes, citing the “inevitable hold times” that travel on with talking to a unrecorded cause and the subscription offers they promote.

The Federal Trade Commission has started cracking down connected hard-to-cancel subscriptions arsenic well, with a caller “click to cancel” rule going into effect adjacent year. Under the law, companies indispensable marque canceling a subscription arsenic casual arsenic it is to motion up. “This determination recovered SiriusXM illegally created a analyzable cancellation process for its New York customers, forcing them to walk important amounts of clip speaking with agents who refused to instrumentality ‘no’ for an answer,” Attorney General James said successful a statement.

As a effect of the ruling, SiriusXM indispensable alteration its cancellation process — but lone for customers located successful New York. SiriusXM says it plans to entreaty the determination and volition besides travel the FTC’s incoming click-to-cancel rule, according to Reuters. The institution didn’t instantly respond to The Verge’s petition for comment.