SiriusXM Made It Too Tough For Customers To End Their Subscriptions, NY Judge Rules (deadline.com) 24
Weeks after federal regulators announced a "click-to-cancel" rule for subscription businesses, a New York judge has ruled that SiriusXM made it too difficult for customers to end their service. Deadline: New York State Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank's ruling, issued Thursday, upheld elements of a lawsuit filed against the satellite audio firm in 2023 by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In a post on X after Frank's ruling, she wrote that the company "illegally forced people to go through a long and burdensome process to simply cancel their subscriptions. We sued SiriusXM to protect people's wallets, and now, SiriusXM must simplify its cancellation process and stop taking advantage of New Yorkers."
good (Score:3)
Fuck sirius. With their pants on. At the beach.
Their cancellation process was so bad even 15 years ago, I said fuck it, not doing that again, and let it lapse on a dying/expiring credit card and they kept the service going and charged me for continuity of service.
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The juice has to be worth the squeeze.
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Why would anyone bother?
Apple Music and Spotify give you on-demand access to pretty much any music you want, plus podcasts, plus curated "radio" stations, plus new music based on what you already like; all at half the advertised cost of XM. And that's before all of XM's various surcharges, fees, taxes, et cetera, which the fine print mentions but does not actually enumerate. I couldn't even tell you what XM costs in total, because Sirius won't tell me!
Sirius gets you the curated radio stations and... Howa
Re: good (Score:2)
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Why would anyone bother?
Apple Music and Spotify give you on-demand access to pretty much any music you want, plus [.....]
There is a lot of music on XM that I don't get on Apple Music, and there is other content (not your Howard Stern) on XM that isn't anywhere else. The cost of XM is comparable to Apple Music and Spotify.
However, to get a good price on XM, you have to cancel.
And that is very difficult. But if you set aside about 2 hours
of your life, every six months to a year, and go through all
their customer retention bullshit, you will be rewarded.
I have Apple, Prime (Alexa), and XM.
I actually cancelled XM (car) about 15 ye
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I'm not trying to to argue, but genuinely curious... what music and content do you get on XM that can't be had on Apple Music or Spotify? Have they added a bunch of impressive stuff very recently? I bought my current car in 2022 and it came with a 3-month XM trial, so I tried it out. And I was resoundingly unimpressed.
I not opposed to paying for specialized services. I pay $4/month (Billed for 2 years in advance and going up to $5 next time it's up for renewal.) for di.fm. That's a real $4, with no addi
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As old as this service is, it's surprising seemingly no one has managed to crack the receivers.
Oh, I'm sure it was done many times. On the support forum, discussing cracks was strictly forbidden. My impression is that it wasn't that hard. However, it also wasn't that useful. Without an active account, you didn't get updates to the program guide. There was clunky ways of working around that too but most people didn't consider it worth the hassle.
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Ah. It thought this was responding to the TIVO comment. I never did anything with Sirius.
And that's why I am not a customer. (Score:2)
When this is live and known to be working, they might get a customer.. That they would have had for the last 4 years.
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Their programming, their cost, their commercials, their cancellation process. There's nothing to like about Sirius. At all.
Before the likes of Pandora, Spotify, whatever were a thing there was some value satellite radio. Now that you can stream whatever you want there's no point.
They are the worst (Score:5, Interesting)
I avoided them for years (Score:2)
Because cancelling took 30 minutes of them constantly trying to offer me new deals. Pissed me right off. I wasn't using it at this time and I wanted to fucking cancel CANCEL IT. For FUCK SAKE it still pisses me off.
Next time I'll be really fucking hostile about it. I did sign up again not too long ago for a trip, and would have sooner if they weren't such a fucking hassle to cancel, next time though, no fucks will be given. Cancel it or I report the charge fraudulent .
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Because cancelling took 30 minutes of them constantly trying to offer me new deals. Pissed me right off. I wasn't using it at this time and I wanted to fucking cancel CANCEL IT. For FUCK SAKE it still pisses me off..
I quess their reps are rated on retention so they will exhaust every offer they can make; so you have to keep saying “No, cancel’ until they give up.
Inconsistent verdict (Score:2)
Frank, the company added, âoedismissed almost all of the charges against SiriusXM, and found that SiriusXMâ(TM)s policies were neither misleading nor deceptive. Most importantly, the Court ruled that SiriusXM had shown through âa plethora of material⦠that they have taken repeated steps to avoid creating such an atmosphereâ(TM) of fraud or deceit. While the Court found some technical violations of a Federal statute, it did not find that SiriusXM ever deceived anyone or committed any fraud.â
Funny how that part of the article didn't make it into the fine summary...
As a next step... (Score:2)
... make it illegal for any car to upsell, promote, or maintain shortcuts to any service that a use hasn't explicitly consented to be in their vehicle. And do not penalise them for their choice either.
Too many infotainment systems have a dogshit link to something people don't want and there is no way to remove or hide it.
just use a debit card (Score:2)
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So yes, that would keep them from charging you, but it won't keep them from turning your account over to collections, or dinging your credit report.
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and when you want to cancel a service with an amoral company just go to the bank and get a new debit card with new numbers making the old card numbers invalid, thus cutting them off like they deserve, i do it that way with at&t and AAA, fuck em they dont have the right to scalp your bank account
This is exactly the type of personal financial advice I come to slashdot for.
not a problem (Score:2)
I cancelled my free with car 3 year service by not paying. Worked like a charm.