A Sirius XM Radio customer sued the U.S. satellite radio company on Monday, saying it deceptively increased prices in breach of subscriber contracts.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, said that since a July 2008 merger of Sirius and rival XM Satellite Radio, the only two satellite radio providers in the United States, monthly charges had risen by nearly 30 percent for certain subscribers with multiple accounts.
“Since the merger, Sirius XM has abused its monopoly power by increasing prices above competitive levels, breaching subscriber contracts, and making false and misleading statements to subscribers and the public,” said the complaint by Carl Blessing.
Sirius has left its core rate of about $13 a month unchanged, a condition to which Sirius and XM agreed with federal regulators in order to close their merger. Since then subscribers have seen an increase in multiple radio subscriptions, internet access and an increase in Music Royalty Fees.
The lawsuit argued that a subscriber with one additional radio who had previously had free Internet access was now paying $27.88 per month compared with $19.94 per month, an increase of 40 percent.
A representative of Sirius could not immediately be reached for comment.
Carl Blessing v Sirius XM Radio, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 09-10035.
Via Reuters
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Good! I was pretty ticked when they charged me much more AND dropped my ability to listen online. I’ve listened online just a bit, but now I can’t. I call shenanigans on SiriusXM!
This XM / Sirius so called merger is terrible. I just purchased a new Ford truck, the flyer at the Ford dealer has XM channels listed. Being an XM customer I thought I could just add a second radio, but no not so. I need to open a new Sirius account at higher rate than just adding a second radio to my XM account. Get’s better, the flyer showed XM/Sirius channel listing, but when I tried to access my station (Village – channel 15) guess what, not available on my Ford Sirius radio. OK so I spent several hundred extra dollars to get an XM radio that is not XM and cannot play my preferred radio station (Village)
Can I tell you I think this is fraudulent and someone should sue them for misrepresentation.
Thank you
Scott
Scott
The fact that the Stiletto 2 is still the latest portable radio after having been out since 2006 is proof that this is a non-competitive arrangement. How many MP3 players, not to mention multiple iPod models, have come out since then?