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'No Thanks' Not Good Enough For AOL Promos
boio writes: "AOL users are suing AOL over its advertising practices, claiming that they were charged for products that they never requested. Apparently these users say they clicked the 'no thanks' button, but still received the advertised products. Of course, we must wonder if these people truly clicked no thanks ...they are using AOL after all, and maybe they had a secret yearning for that Torreador Bed-in-a-Bag ;)."
Credit card companies have been doing this for years, and nobody seems to be suing the pants off them. Or at the least, torching their offices. I worked Customer Service for a big name card once. I would say on average 80% of calls were concerning "This fucking sixty dollar charge I didn't authorize!!!". It's good to see some action on this, but it's going to be hard to convince the courts that they really didn't just click on the wrong button. Hell, I'm not convinced.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Another poster is right, give me the MS monopoly any day, they are focused on 1 thing and I can avoid it. It will soon be impossible to avoid sending revenue to AOL.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
AOL is the kind of company to send their users over to other peoples' tech support. For instance, I used to work for Bellsouth's DSL tech support. For the FastAccess service. Not a day would go by that I didn't get at least one or two calls from people who had been cold transferred from AOL's tech support because AOL doesn't appear to support their own software if you're not dialing into them. Also, I've had AOL technicians try to dump their customers off on me, saying things like, "Well he has Bellsouth icon in his DUN folder, we don't support that". Not only that, but AOL likes to slam people from other DSL services. I've had many sweet old ladies who have said no and no again to AOL, calling in for a no sync problem. Guess what it ends up being? AOL slammed them because they said no. With companies adopting this 'sell them products they didn't request until people get pissed off' approach, its a surprise more people aren't getting sued.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
It was like this in the past. However, in the world we have today, there are too many scary possibilities.
#1 AOL bills them for the products, and when they refuse to pay, sics a collection agency on them. Ruins their credit rating, something which might as well be impossible to fix.
#2 AOL already requires a credit card number for service. It wouldn't suprise me, if they just charged it to the card. Maybe a bit easier to fix, but then they lose their internet service. Assume that the credit card company is willing to reverse the charge for an unsolicited product, what do you think AOL's reaction will be?
For instance, back in '95, I lived in a small hick town. The local ISP canceled my service, simply because I had requested a price on a static IP (oh no, he must be a hacker!). In the two months that it took for me to resolve this dispute, I was without internet service. The withdrawal was so bad, I did the previously unimaginable... I signed up for the only other isp with a local number, AOL. It was horrible... if you minimize the stupid AOL screen, it would disconnect you everyy 45 minutes. And if you left it up, it completely covered the desktop. Needless to say, I hurried up, and did the ass-kissing it took, to get my other isp account back.
Well, even though I distinctly remember canceling AOL (it didn't appear on any of my subsequent credit card statements), two years later I have moved, and since canceled the credit card. Well, I get a call from AOL's collection service, demanding that I pay 2 years worth of AOL service. Not alot I can do to prove it to them, because if their own records don't show that I haven't signed on in over 22 months, what will? Worse, I ask them if I'm still signed up for service.
"Yes". "Please cancel it immediately!". "Can we have the credit card number that you signed up with?". "No, I've since canceled it, and have nothing with the number". "We're sorry, but we can't cancel the service without the cc number...".
Well, one month later, they cancel it anyway (thank god), but only because they've farmed it out to a collection agency. When the collection agency asks me if I want to dispute it, I tell them this story. They call me back a week later, telling me that they have rescinded the charges, and that I may have to privately pursue getting this taken off my credit history. Seems even the sharks at the collection agency had never heard of anything so f*cked up... they simply dropped it as unpursuable.
So, I have no trouble believing that AOL would do anything at all, nothing is too low.
As to the question of ordering, reminds me of silly programs we wrote when we were secretly mocking users on our records system years ago.
Enter Yes if you would like to continue OR
Enter No if you do not wish to exit the program.
I'd give the users the benefit of the doubt, if YES/NO choice doesn't work in a way they anticipate then it's most likely the provider's failing, though as I recall, there have been many of examples of people being duped into paying for things they had no knowledge of.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes, but beware this path. I had a problem with a club I belonged to (no, not Columbia House). They were marketing a series of videos on various home repair/remodelling ideas, and the series was pretty good.
I noticed that the series was starting to repeat itself, so I started using the postage pre-paid return labels. It became pretty quickly evident that I was going to be getting "essentially duplicates" and that they had run out of new ideas, so I cancelled the subscription.
Everything was fine until about 4 months later when a special 3 tape box set arrived introducing me to their "new" run of videos. If I didn't like it, I could just send the tapes back... ON MY DIME. No more postage pre-paid label? No problem. I wrote a letter off to the comany thanking them for their gift, but informing them that I did not wish to subscribe to the new series. I also informed them that they could send a postage-paid return label and I'd be happy to return their tapes. If not, I'd consider the tapes unsolicited merchandise and dispose of them as I saw fit.
I never watched the tapes. I kept them in their original packaging - I was really curious what the company would do. I was sorry I decided to find out. They sent reminder notices - I sent back copies of the original letter. They sent threats, I sent back documentation from the FTC. They sent a collection notice, I sent registered mail. This went on for four months.
FINALLY... I got a postage paid return label, returned their tapes, and haven't gotten very much in the way of promotional crap from them again. Something tells me I cost them a lot more money than they cost me.
Moral of the story is be careful about using the FTC regulations to claim that something sent to you is yours and that the vendor can go forth and multiply with extreme prejudice. Some can, and do bother you more than it's worth.