The New York AG just won a lawsuit over a process that 'deliberately' wastes subscribers' time:
A New York judge has determined that SiriusXM's "long and burdensome" cancellation process is illegal. In a ruling on Thursday, Judge Lyle Frank found SiriusXM violates a federal law that requires companies to make it easy to cancel a subscription.
The decision comes nearly one year after New York Attorney General Leticia James sued SiriusXM over claims the company makes subscriptions difficult to cancel. Following an investigation, the Office of the Attorney General found that the company attempts to delay cancellations by having customers call an agent, who then keeps them on the phone for several minutes while "pitching the subscriber as many as five retention offers."
As outlined in the ruling, Judge Frank found that SiriusXM broke the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires companies to implement "simple mechanisms" to cancel a subscription. "Their cancellation procedure is clearly not as easy to use as the initiation method," Judge Frank writes, citing the "inevitable wait times" that come along with talking to a live agent and the subscription offers they promote.
The Federal Trade Commission has started cracking down on hard-to-cancel subscriptions as well, with a new "click to cancel" rule going into effect next year. Under the law, companies must make canceling a subscription as easy as it is to sign up. "This decision found SiriusXM illegally created a complicated cancellation process for its New York customers, forcing them to spend significant amounts of time speaking with agents who refused to take 'no' for an answer," Attorney General James said in a statement.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 26, @02:37AM
"And, worse yet, some of them also have "click wrap" contracts that you agree to that, buried deep on page 34 of 62 in 4pt type contains a clause that if you stop payment on your end via bank or credit card, that not only do you now owe them the subscription costs, but also large penalty to pay surcharges too. Whether any of these have been tested in court is a different question, but given the usual costs of a trial, one would spend more on lawyers to win in court and not pay the fines than the fines themselves cost. Which is also a 'feature' of the system these companies rely upon."
This is my prime concern when confronted with subscription contracts. As far as I am concerned, long winded contracts full of legalese are a clear warning I should abandon any relationship with that company lest I snarl myself in legal matters.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]