SiriusXM Subscription Billing Lawsuit: What Subscribers Must Know

SiriusXM Subscription Billing Lawsuit: Are You Still Being Charged After Canceling?

You clicked cancel. You stayed on hold for 45 minutes. You said no to every offer. And yet the charge appeared again on your statement.

That’s not an accident. New York Attorney General Letitia James accused SiriusXM of subjecting canceling customers to “a lengthy and burdensome endurance contest,” forcing subscribers to devote “inordinate amounts of time, patience, and stamina” to cancel a subscription they have a legal right to exit. With over 34 million subscribers and multiple active lawsuits, the satellite radio giant is facing its biggest legal reckoning yet.

Here’s what this article covers:

• What SiriusXM is actually accused of doing to subscribers
• The hidden 21.4% fee buried inside every billing cycle
• Who qualifies for up to $1,500 from the $28 million settlement
• How to cancel, dispute charges, and protect your rights today

Here’s everything you need to know.

What SiriusXM Is Actually Accused Of

This isn’t one lawsuit. It’s three overlapping legal battles targeting the same company for what courts are increasingly calling a system of consumer abuse, not isolated mistakes.

The Cancellation Trap

SiriusXM forces subscribers to “devote inordinate amounts of time, patience, and stamina trying to cancel a subscription they no longer wish to pay for,” even though they have a “legal and contractual right to cancel anytime using a process that is simple and efficient.”

The cancellation process, according to court filings, works like this:

• You must call during business hours and speak with a live agent
• Agents follow a mandatory “lengthy, six-part retention script”
• Agents are allegedly trained not to accept “no” as an answer
• Customers endure extended hold times, multiple upsell offers, and repeated pressure
• Even after outlasting the process, subscriptions are not always actually canceled

The kicker? SiriusXM “deliberately wastes its subscribers’ time even though it has the ability to process cancellations with the click of a button.” The only reason it requires a live agent, courts found, is “to maximize its opportunity to retain them as subscribers.”

A federal judge ruled that this violates ROSCA, the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, a federal consumer protection law requiring that cancellation be as simple as the sign-up process.

The Hidden Fee Scheme

Separate from the cancellation fight, multiple class actions target how SiriusXM advertises its prices. The company advertises its music plans at specific monthly rates, but never mentions the mandatory 21.4% “U.S. Music Royalty Fee” until billing. The fee’s name is itself deceptive, designed to falsely imply it’s a government-mandated charge when it is not.

When subscribers contact SiriusXM about this fee, the company has a policy of “outright falsely telling the subscriber that it is ‘government mandated’ or a government pass-through fee.” It isn’t.

The financial scale of this fee is staggering. In 2023, SiriusXM collected $1.36 billion in royalty fee charges, an amount greater than what it actually paid in music royalties, and equal to 108% of the company’s entire net profits for the year.

The Robocall Problem

A third lawsuit, Campbell v. SiriusXM Radio Inc., targets how the company obtains customer phone numbers. The lawsuit describes how SiriusXM obtains customer phone numbers from car dealerships at the point of vehicle purchase, often without the buyer’s knowledge or consent, then uses those numbers to make telemarketing calls to people on Do Not Call registries.

This is the lawsuit that produced the $28 million settlement currently accepting claims.

The Hidden 21.4% Fee Inside Every Bill

Most SiriusXM subscribers have no idea they’re paying more than advertised. That’s by design.

When you sign up for a music plan at, say, $9.99 a month, the real cost is $12.12. The difference is the U.S. Music Royalty Fee, which adds exactly 21.4% on top of every advertised price. SiriusXM never mentions the words “U.S. Music Royalty Fee” in any of its advertising, not even in the fine print. Its only disclaimer is “Fees and taxes apply,” but in reality, no taxes apply, making the royalty fee the sole and exclusive component of what it calls “fees and taxes.”

After you sign up, the concealment continues. SiriusXM never sends monthly billing notices or invoices. It silently and automatically renews subscriptions month after month and year after year, making it nearly impossible for subscribers to notice the discrepancy unless they carefully scrutinize their bank statements.

SiriusXM tried to have the lawsuit dismissed in 2025, arguing the case was filed too late and that the company had already changed its advertising under the new California law. Judge Michael H. Simon denied the motion, ruling that a jury could find plaintiffs “might reasonably miss such a small additional charge in the cacophony of everyday life,” and that SiriusXM’s arguments lacked merit. Discovery is now moving forward.

The financial damage to subscribers breaks down by state:

State	Estimated Total Extracted Since 2009
California	Over $1 billion
Oregon	Over $130 million
Washington	Approximately $242 million
Florida	Approximately $690 million

Who Qualifies for Up to $1,500

The $28 million TCPA settlement is the most immediately actionable path to compensation, and the claim deadline has already passed for the March 2026 window. However, the Final Approval Hearing is now scheduled for May 11, 2026, and the settlement remains non-reversionary, meaning unclaimed funds are redistributed to valid claimants rather than returned to SiriusXM.

You qualify for the robocall settlement if:

• You are a natural person residing in the United States
• You received more than one telemarketing sales call from SiriusXM within any 12-month period between April 27, 2019, and October 31, 2025
• Your phone number was registered on the National Do Not Call Registry, OR you had previously asked SiriusXM to stop calling you

You do NOT qualify if:

• You were an active paying SiriusXM subscriber when you received the calls
• You are a business rather than an individual consumer
• You never received telemarketing calls from SiriusXM during the covered period

For the hidden royalty fee class actions, eligibility varies by state. California, Oregon, Washington, and Florida subscribers have active cases. If you subscribed to a SiriusXM music plan and paid the 21.4% fee without being clearly informed of it at the point of signup, you may be part of a future class once those cases advance to settlement.

Pro tip: Even if the TCPA claim deadline has passed, document your subscription history now. Screenshot your billing statements showing the royalty fee, note every cancellation attempt with dates and times, and save any email confirmations. This evidence is critical if the royalty fee or cancellation cases reach a settlement and open a new claim window.

How to Cancel, Dispute Charges, and Protect Your Rights

The court rulings have already changed what SiriusXM is legally required to offer. Here’s how to use those rulings to your advantage right now.

Canceling your subscription:

Following the ROSCA ruling, SiriusXM must now provide simple cancellation methods without requiring live agent interaction. You can demand online cancellation through your account portal. If you are redirected to a phone call or stonewalled, document the entire experience, including dates, times, and screenshots.

Steps to protect yourself during cancellation:

• Request cancellation in writing via your online account and by email
• Screenshot the confirmation page or save the confirmation number
• Monitor your bank or credit card statement for the next two billing cycles
• If charged after a confirmed cancellation, dispute the charge directly with your card issuer as an unauthorized transaction

Disputing the royalty fee:

• Pull your billing history and calculate what you’ve paid above the advertised subscription price
• File a complaint with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, citing deceptive pricing
• File a complaint with your state attorney general, particularly if you’re in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, or Florida
• Contact your bank about recurring charge disputes if you believe you were billed without proper disclosure

Staying ahead of future settlements:

This is not SiriusXM’s first TCPA settlement. The company previously paid more than $60 million in earlier settlements for similar violations, including a $35 million settlement in 2016 for autodialer violations and a $25 million settlement in 2019. The pattern suggests more settlements are likely as the royalty fee cases progress. Sign up for class action alerts at TopClassActions.com or ClassAction.org to be notified when new claim windows open.

The Bill You Never Agreed to Pay

SiriusXM built a system where signing up takes minutes and canceling takes hours. Where the price you saw wasn’t the price you paid. And where calling to complain triggers a script specifically designed to wear you down.

Courts have now seen enough.

Key takeaways:

• New York’s Attorney General sued SiriusXM for forcing subscribers through a “lengthy, six-part retention script” designed to make cancellation fail, even though the company can process cancellations with a single click
• A federal court ruled SiriusXM violated ROSCA, a federal consumer protection law, by making cancellation more burdensome than sign-up
• The 21.4% U.S. Music Royalty Fee is not government-mandated, and SiriusXM allegedly trains agents to falsely tell customers that it is
• In 2023 alone, the royalty fee generated $1.36 billion in revenue for SiriusXM, more than the company’s entire net profit that year
• The $28 million TCPA settlement covers robocall victims from April 2019 to October 2025, with eligible claimants receiving up to $1,500
• Final approval hearing for the TCPA settlement is May 11, 2026, with payments expected roughly 30 days after all appeals resolve
• Hidden fee class actions covering California, Oregon, Washington, and Florida subscribers are still in active litigation and could produce additional settlements
• You can now demand online cancellation without speaking to a live agent, and continued charges after cancellation can be disputed with your bank

SiriusXM has a legal obligation to make cancellation simple and pricing transparent. If your experience has been anything different, courts have already ruled that you were right, and the company was wrong.