Well I knew XM was a pain to cancel but jeez!

December 28, 2009 12:01 AM

A company continues to charge my debit card two months after it has been deactivated. Am I entitiled to a refund?

XM/Sirius Radio continues to charge my debit card after I had the card cancelled two months ago. I assumed they would cancel the account once they realized the card was no longer active. I'm okay with paying for the last month that the card was active, but this is getting ridiculous!

My question is, do I have a valid arguement when I call to ask for the charges to be dropped, or is this common and legal?

posted by Sufi to Law & Government (10 answers total)

If you had a contract with XM/Sirius Radio that extended into a period of time after you cancelled your debit card, you can't get out of your contract just by cancelling the card. They're going to charge you any way they can, and to be honest this was is cheaper than sending your bill to collection. Assuming you had a contract with them, unless there's something else going on, I don't think you have a valid argument at all.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:05 AM on December 28, 2009

Response by poster: To my knowledge, there is no contract with this account. It was month-to-month with no termination fee.
posted by Sufi at 12:06 AM on December 28, 2009

Surely this depends on the chronology of events? If you canceled your account and then they kept charging your card, that would be one thing. But canceling your card is hardly the same thing as getting yourself out of a contract.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:08 AM on December 28, 2009

Response by poster: There is no contract. I did not have a year long subscription, it was month-to-month, cancel anytime.
posted by Sufi at 12:11 AM on December 28, 2009

I assumed they would cancel the account

No, you have to cancel the account. Even without a contract you have to tell them you don't want it any more.
posted by The Deej at 12:14 AM on December 28, 2009

My question is, do I have a valid arguement when I call to ask for the charges to be dropped, or is this common and legal?

Not only is this legal, they're actually in the right here because you still owe them money. Pay up and then actually cancel the account if you don't want to be on the hook with them.
posted by dhammond at 12:14 AM on December 28, 2009

Best answer: I heard a radio presentation some months ago referring to this very issue. Apparently whether or not you think you have a valid "account" is not much impediment to recurring charges. My approach would be to forget any refund, but definitely communicate to Sirius to stop the recurring charge.
posted by telstar at 12:27 AM on December 28, 2009

To my knowledge, there is no contract with this account. It was month-to-month with no termination fee.

But there was a contract! It may have been month-to-month with no termination, but you still didn't terminate it. I would have kept billing you too, if I were them! Why not?
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:40 AM on December 28, 2009

Yeah, as everyone is suggesting, you are in the wrong. The existence or nonexistence of the bank card has nothing to do with whether your subscription to XM/Sirius is active or not. You cancel your subscription by calling or writing XM/Sirius, not by removing their means of getting paid.
posted by jon1270 at 3:18 AM on December 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

You have to actually cancel it to cancel it, as everyone has said.

They're not psychic; as far as they know, you still want the service even though your debit card has changed. That probably happens to them far more often than your situation, so after a bazillion 'grar flail why did you cancel my service I have a new debit card and it should have notified you automatically stupid bank' they err on the side of continuing service.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:50 AM on December 28, 2009