Slashdot Mirror
Disconnecting
At the moment, Earthlink is running scads of TV ads showing the hapless nerd beseiged by guys in business suits who pull the plug on his computer, shower him with junk mail and peper him with tennis balls. At Earthlink, the ad says, they don't tolerate any of those service interruptions or spamming or pop-ups. So I thought it would be easy to cancel its service, which I actually acquired back when my account said Mindspring. But Earthlink's ferocious defense apparently only applies to paying customers, not to departing ones. Most ISPs, unlike more regulated phone companies, don't send monthly bills; they simply bill membership to a credit card. Thus, it's not simple even to find a phone number to call when you want out, and you sure won't find any little cancellation box on the home page.
When I got through at 8:50 a.m., I heard the usual chirpy recorded message urging me onto the site's website, where, the voice assured me, all my questions could be answered. There was, however, no prompt or icon or command on the customer service or tech support page for cancelling membership.
Back to the phones. I got to the menu, which didn't give an option for cancellation, but did give one for sales and service. That had to be the one, right? Wrong. After waiting on hold for 20 minutes, Diane told me there was a special customer service department for cancellations. She switched me to it. Fifteen minutes of bad music. I had that familiar, sinking feeling one gets upon entering the land of customer support, tech style. You can get in anytime, but you can't always get out.
Then a tech support rep came on. Can't imagine why you were switched to this department, he said. But I've been on the phone for half an hour, I said, taking the slightly more pleading voice one uses in the second stage of Phone Menu Hell -- the point before you really lose it, while you still hope some decent soul will ignore company policy and treat you right.
"Tell you what," said Steve the tech, his voice getting a tad chillier. "Why don't I stay on with you while we switch you over?" Great, I said. He vanished and wasn't heard from again. In the world of customer service, lies are the currency, and broken hearts abound.
Twenty-five more minutes, and a customer service rep from the first department popped on. A veteran of too many of these conversations to recount, I asked to speak to a supervisor immediately. One (allegedly) came on. Oh, he said, I was in the wrong department. So I did that thing where you recount your sorry travails in Tech Support Hell while they sometimes pretend to care.
"I've been on the phone for an hour," I said, the fuse having been lit. "It only took me five minutes to sign up. Why not make it possible to cancel electronically?"
Can't do that, he said, for security reasons. We have to verify your identify.
"But you let people sign up online, verifying or not verifying?"
"That's different," he said. It sure is. Cash flows in rather than out. After a few minutes (maybe three) on hold, I was told I needed a special devision of sales that cancelled subscribers. The supervisor switched me over. I expected to end up back in regular customer service, but didn't.
At 10:04 a.m., Cindy came on to ask for my name and PW. I didn't have the latter, as I hadn't used the service for a long time, and the PW had vanished into Password Hell, the bottom of a desk drawer stuffed with the detritus of old accounts, ID codes and issue and support reference numbers from countless tech issues and tech support pleas and brawls.
Cindy said Earthlink had no record of my ever having been a customer -- no name, address or credit card on file. I relayed to Cindy how impressed I was that they hadn't skipped a single month of billing me for the service, even though they didn't seem to know I existed. Yet I did have my credit card bill and assured her I was looking at a monthly charge of $9.95. Eventually it occurred to me that the account might be in my wife's name along with mine. The computer seemed willing to compromise on this point. Cindy said my service would be terminated. Was there anything else she could help me with?
Throughout this ridiculous waste of time, a voice kept popping up saying all calls might be monitored to ensure good service. I hope so. I also hope the people monitoring it have a lot of time and stored memory and a high tolerance for generic pop. I wonder if these people ever think about the irony: they spend all this money claiming to want to make life easier for people, yet they make what should be the simplest things nearly impossible.
The AOL call, initiated at 10:25 a.m. was shorter but weirder. This behemoth spends even more money touting how easy and customer-friendly the service is. That is, after all, the ads say, why they're Number One. But there's no keyword on AOL -- which has a keyword for everything -- for cancelling membership. If you root around in customer support for a while and keep typing in "cancel service" at every prompt -- I'm talking two or three browser moves and about five minutes, just enough to discourage the rushed, confused or distractable -- you eventually reach a page that offers an 888 number for cancellation of membership.
Getting the number of course, doesn't mean getting a human to answer the phone, which required another 20 or more minutes. The world's easiest-to-use and most wholesome online service doesn't fuss much about departing customers, either. At this point, I seriously considered saving the cancellation of AOL for another day. Maybe cancelling two ISPs is just too cumbersome for one workday. But then, there was Hemos and the invoices.
A gruff Brian answered the phone. "Can I help you?" he said, sounding as though his feelings were already hurt and he was spoiling for a fight. I assumed I had to be misreading his tone. I said I wanted to cancel.
"Why?" he asked. "We need to list a reason." Wondering why that was any of his business and eager to finally get off the phone, I mumbled something about having switched to cable. "You can piggyback AOL on cable," Brian interrupted. "That's not really a good reason."
Did I need a really good reason, I wondered? Had I missed something in the fine print when I signed up? What if something personal had happened, like a broken-off love affair? Or maybe I was broke, or been driven mad by pop-up ads and spam?
"Is there any complaint about the service?," he asked abruptly. I hadn't heard this brusque tone from customer service people, usually trained to hold onto a syrupy, we-are-here-to-please-you voice that probably causes them (and you) to later go home and torture their pets.
No, I said, I was happy with the service. I had finally switched to cable and wanted to cancel, that's all. What was the point of dumping on AOL, which I hadn't even been on for months? That would just generate a sugary phone call in a couple of days, pleading for re-consideration.
"You're sending out mixed signals here," Brian insisted, none too warmly. "This isn't really a good reason for cancelling. We can talk about adjusting the pricing, because there are different plans, if that's a problem, and since we can piggyback on cable and you have no complaints, I'm afraid I just don't understand. What am I supposed to write down on the form? You're not making any sense."
Contrary to the atmosphere on Slashdot, I don't particularly enjoy arguing, but Brian flipped my trigger. What would a 70-year-old user say under those circumstances, or a kid, or somebody who didn't speak English very well? Or somebody who just didn't want Brian jeering at him in a voice that vacillated between rude and intimidating?
It was outrageous and I finally lost it. "Look, Brian, I don't have to give you an unmixed signal, a good reason or any reason. I want you to cancel the service right now. Got it?"
"Your service is terminated," he said sharply at 10:50 a.m. AOL hung up on me! Things can't be all that rosy at the world's largest communications company. Brian was feeling -- therefore transmitting -- too much heat. But I was finally disconnected.
The morning did bring sharply into focus that this disconnection business is a horror, along with the way tech businesses often treat their customers, even as they spend fortunes taking out expensive ads claiming otherwise. Nobody should have to spend that much time cancelling two ISP's. It's so discouraging and so unpleasant that hundreds of thousands of people undoubtedly find it easier to pay relatively small monthly fees to avoid it. Which is almost certainly the idea.
So at the least I propose that ISPs be required to send monthly bills, listing numbers to call or websites to visit so that users can cancel on the phone or online. that means, of course, that ISP sites must offer electronic cancellation (if you can get on with a PW and ID, why can't you get off with them?) -- a button to push to cancel membership. It obviously ought to be as easy to cancel as to subscribe. Finally, AOL, of all places, and other sites should not dare be insulting, intimidating or browbeating to customers who want or need to disconnect. (Something Earthlink didn't try, I should point out -- though it took an outrageously long time there and the site didn't make the process simple in any way.)
In a world where it ought to be a universal right to get connected instantly, you ought to be able to get disconnected without calling a lawyer, a hit man or the FTC.
Never ever go to the "place" in automated call routing hell for canceling your account. Go to the "place" for past dure bills. I've never had to wait on hold there, and they can cancel your account for you. My business requires that I open and close many ISP accounts and that's always worked.
You know, the first thing I would do after this is call my credit card company and tell them that you've canceled these accounts and that there should be 1 final payment to them and no more after that.
You complained about having them on auto-bill, but that actually makes it easier to protect yourself.
I never use any auto-monthly pay option for any services, be it electric bill, ISP bill, cable bill, phone bill, etc.
It might be convinient, but I rather write the check every month than to deal with these kind of BS that might follow.
geek page at KY speaks
For those of you that want to attempt to cancel your AOL account like Jon Katz, the number is listed on this page.
Interestingly, Earthlink also has the phone numbers to cancel just about any popular Internet service (except for themselves of course) here.
The quality of tech customer service has been steadily declining over the past five-six years. For certain sectors, ISPs and telcos, the quality is simply atrocious. There are multiple reasons at work here:
1) New technologies (i.e. DSL for the RBOCs, cable internet for CATV carriers) have hastily cobbled together support structures that do a poor job of responding to customer needs. Education of the support techs seems to be as poor as education of the customers, leaving a huge gap in the working knowledge required to troubleshoot and rectify problems.
2) Corporate cost cutting. When Ameritech outsourced their IP support to Convergys (a spin-off of CBIS) a couple of years ago, the marked rise in on-hold times along with the decline in quality of the staff (working knowledge of telephony infrastructure) caused our corporation to switch to another IP provide.
3) Scripting. Support staff railroad you into a narrow set of options and if your particular problem doesn't fit into the right slot, you are relegated to a black hole of call-backs by higher level of support that adds days if not weeks to the resolution of your problem.
These issues have gotten so bad in the past couple of years that it is amazing that we have high-speed IP access at the consumer level at all in the U.S.
They disconnect me practically every month, until I go pay the bill. It occurs to me, that if I simply stopped paying the bills, they would gradually get the hint I was gone.
Of course, you gave them your credit card number, which makes billing easy for you (and for them) but that puts all the effort on you to get it disconnected. If you pay cash or check, and you simply stop making payments, you'll be disconnected faster with no intervention on your part at all.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"John Katz? THE John Katz? Sure I can cancel your service, please hold for one minute"
*click*
Bwahahahahaha!
A friend of mine got AOL FREE for over 3 months, she started with the one month starter CD then every month she phoned to terminate the account.. Every time they would offer her another month free to try it.. This went on for many months, not costing her a dime except time to make the calles.. She finnaly went to a real ISP..
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
I had that wonderful experience with Compuserve way back when. My ID didn't work, but the billing was still on my credit card.
I'm still in therapy for my experiences trying to sort that mess out. :-)
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Actually cancelling various services may be hard, but never underestimate the power of threatening to cancel the service in order to get what you want.
I use AT&T for my cable and internet service. I stopped watching TV as much recently, so I wanted to downgrade my cable service from Extended Basic to Standard Basic. I called the ever helpful (sarcasm) tech support, and the woman told me that they would have to charge a $15 "service fee" to downgrade the service as I requested. She explained that they had to send a technician out to turn off part of my service, and that I had to pay for that. Obviously, this sounded ridiculous, so I asked "If I just cancelled the service entirely, would there still be a fee?"
The next words out of her mouth were "Let me just waive that service fee for you..."
:)
It's actually pretty easy to get AOL to cancel your account. All you have to do is to go into one of their chat rooms and start typing profanity. Works even better if it's a kid's room and you start propositioning them. Your account will last about 5 minutes.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
The easiest thing in the world is just to send them your cancellation in registered mail so you can prove that they received it.
Then contact your bank to stop payments to whatever entity is siphoning from your account.
End of problem, if they don't comply they are on the wrong end of the criminal law.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
AOL removed online cancelation because it was, well, easy. This was brought up during the lawsuits aginst them over the busy signals a few years ago. Currently you have to call to cancel, and the person you'll speak to receives a paid bonus if they convince you not to cancel. They usually offer another free month or point out that you could just call back on the exact day your bill cycles. That's why Katz got hung up on, the person was upset at loosing pay.
I spent a few minutes on the phone, but it was obvious they weren't going to let me terminate service without hours of pain, so I hung up.
Then I sent a notarized and dated letter to each, telling them I had no further need of their services and that I would tender no further payment after the current month. I enclosed a check for the current month's service.
Then I called my bank and told them to refuse all requests for payment from both services.
Unsuprisingly, *both* services tried to bill me again (Compuserve several times). But, since they'd both cashed my checks, they couldn't say they hadn't received my letters.
Worked like a charm, and all told I spent less than two hours on the deal. Of course, both services let me sign up in less than ten minutes, but that's the reality of Corporate Amerika these days.
My friend Red says the secret to happiness is lowered expectations. In this case he's probably right. At least it doesn't matter if I'm "white" or not, they screw everybody equally!
Not sure about Earthlink or AOL but I have never had trouble closing an account. Tips 1. Hit 0 on the first menu.. there is almost never a Cancel service option in the voice menu and 0 usually sends you to a human right away. 2. Go to the billing departemnt.. They are the ones usualy in controll of closing your account. 3. Can't get them to stop billing you.. call your credit card company and have them stop accepting the charges.. The ISP will come looking for thier money and at that point you will have someone to talk too.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
When I cancelled my Earthlink DSL, they turned it off promptly, and still continued to allow me to use the dial up service without ever charging me. Now that's good customer service.
Personally, if I had to wait more than fifteen minutes on the phone, I'd fire a letter to Corporate headquarters, notifying them of my intent to cancel, sending it via registered mail, and have it authenticated by a notary public. If they bill me a second time, I'll do the same, and I'd ask the credit card company to mark the charges as fraudulent. Third time, I'd take them to court -- just for the sheer joy of it. After all, you've got three signed, dated, and authenticated letters, stretching over three months, showing good faith on your part, plus reciepts indicating proof-of-delivery. They'd likely settle out-of-court for a reasonable sum, and enough of these lawsuits might prompt the idiots to actually set up a reasonable cancellation method.
I used to work for EarthLink, so I can attest to the number of very frustrated customers who could never talk to the magical cancellation man...
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Is is just me, or is this the best Jon Katz story ever? I know that's not saying much, but this is the first one in 6 months that I have actually read beyond the preview text.
Agreed. I have TWICE encountered similar problems in the past with ISP's. In my case, the problems were with billing continuing after I had told them to cancel the service. Each time, contacting the credit card company got the issue resolved quickly and almost painlessly.
Once you contact the credit card company and tell them the charge is unauthorized, the monkey is on the VENDOR's back.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Credit card companies are used to dealing with business who make it hard to cancel recurring charges. They know what to do, and in this case they are your allies. Good Luck!
My family used to use AOL despite vocal protests from me and my brother because it was free. Every month or so, we'd reregister for a new account under a different credit card using one of their free CDs, and the changing usernames weren't a problem because Hotmail hadn't been bought by M$ yet, so it was still morally okay to have an account there.
/. story pointed out a few weeks ago) occasionally billing them for the products anyway - and they really couldn't care less about whether people pay for their service or not.
After a while, my parents tried to move to another ISP, probably because they were sick of hearing our whining. My father's call to AOL went something like this:
Dad: "I'd like to cancel my account."
AOL: "Why?"
Dad: "We want to use another service."
AOL: "What if we give you another month for free?"
Dad: "Okay."
So we were stuck with AOL for another month. At the end of that month, he tried cancelling again only to end up having the same conversation. And this happened yet again another month later. We finally moved to another ISP because, left with no other alternatives, I asked my parents to switch to something better as a "birthday present."
Maybe Jon Katz didn't speak to the same representatives at AOL, or maybe they've changed this policy. I find that hard to believe, though, when all you have to do for 1000 free hours is pick up a CD at 7-11 or wait for one to arrive in the mail. AOL gets their money from aggressive advertising - requiring people to see an ad and click "No Thanks" every time they sign on, for instance, and (as a
Things can't be so good at Slashdot if they're having to nickel-and-dime over $9.95 of expenses!
-- the most controversial site on the Web
10. TERMINATION.
You may terminate your account at any time and for any reason by providing notice of intent to terminate to EarthLink by:
- registered or certified mail, return receipt requested addressed to EarthLink Inc., 1375 Peachtree St. Level A, Atlanta, GA 30309; or
- telephone calls directed to Accounts-Customer Service at (800) 719-4660, option #2.
Email termination of your basic Internet access account will not be accepted. To terminate DSL service, you must call (888) 829-8466. To terminate Web Hosting and/or Business Services, you must call (800) 237-0148. Your termination will only be complete upon your receipt of a cancellation confirmation number from EarthLink. Charges to your account will stop accruing the day EarthLink provides you with a cancellation confirmation number. Based on your billing cycle, charges accrued prior to your termination may apply after you receive a cancellation confirmation. Email cancellation requests will not be accepted. If your account included space on EarthLink's servers, anything stored on this space will be deleted upon termination.Without prior notice, EarthLink may terminate this Agreement, your password, your account, or your use of the Services, for any reason, including, without limitation, if EarthLink, in its sole discretion, believes you have violated this Agreement, our Acceptable Use Policy, or any of the applicable user policies, or if you fail to pay any charges when due. EarthLink may provide termination notice to you by: email addressed to your email account or by US Mail or courier service to the address you provided for the Services. All notices to you shall be deemed effective on the first (1st) calendar day following the date of electronic mailing or on the fourth (4th) calendar day following the date of first-class mailing or deposit with a commercial courier service.
Sections 3, 4, 6, and 11 of this Agreement shall survive termination of this Agreement.
3. Can't get them to stop billing you.. call your credit card company and have them stop accepting the charges..
Oh, if only it were that easy. Allow me to relate a horrow story of a friend of mine that he had with MSN. After a few months of service, he decided to cancel and move on to someone else's service.
He went to their webpage, which actually had a cancellation procedure (whatever happened to those days? I smell a conspiracy!). However, after he entered his info and tried to cancel the service (by clicking the button on the webpage), the browser just hung, until the page timed out. He tried several times, but he could never get a cancellation confirmation page to load.
So, he called customer service and tried to cancel through them. They were happy to take his information, waste his time, and then inform him that they were experiencing computer problems, and they could not cancel his service at that time.
So, he called a few days later, and same story. He just kind of let it go, because it was just $20 a month, no big deal, right? So he calls customer service a couple months later, and their computers have since been up and running, but are now broken again. Yeah, a likely story...
So my friend calls Discover, and tells him that he wants to stop accepting charges from MSN. Discover informs him that these charges are recurring and must be cancelled with MSN, Discover cannot decline them.
In the end, my friend was forced to pay off his Discover card and then cancel it. Welcome to Hell, my friends, weclome to Hell...
When my wife tried to cancel her cell phone (she had gone to another service), there line of excuses went:
"We can't"
"We can, but it your contract must run the rest of the year"
"Maybe there was no contract, but there's a $50 service charge"
"Maybe there is no service charge, but you'll have to clear it with the Loyalty department"
At this point my wife is mentions how the Loyalty department has tones of "1984". The service representative says he never saw the movie. *sigh*.
The Loyalty department:
"How about another month's contract just in case you really do need it"
"How about a month's free service" (!)
"How about three months' free service" (!!!)
"Why do you want to cancel?"
"Can you give a better reason?" (!)
Finally, they refused to cancel the service for three months. They'd just stop billing us and if we didn't use the service, it would expire...
Now after all that (which makes for great anecdotes at parties, even if it took a while), they did actually keep their word and we saw no more bills.
With banks and credit card companies, press '0' five times seperated by about a half a second. This is what they tell mail order companies to do when they're calling to verify identity when charging to an account. Since the customer may be on hold while the check is happening, they put you through to a person immediatly.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
When asked why you are cancelling, don't tell them the truth, lie.
AOL REP: And why do you want to cancel your account?
ME: I've converted my religion and am no longer allowed to use computers.
AOL REP: That doesn't sound legitimate.
ME: Are you questioning my faith, because if you are, that would be discrimination. My church has lawyers to deal with this kind of thing.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
My name is Edward and I work for earthlink customer service, I won't try and defend earthlink as for the transfering around to different departments (although if you can provide me with the names of the reps you spoke with I will be more then willing to 'look into this for you') but, as with any phone tree for ISP's, there are usually only 3 options to select.
1)Technical Support (handles technical issues *obviously*)
2) Customer Service (handles billing and account maintenance - cancelling would be account maintenance)
3) Sales (obviously handles the setup of new accounts)
Each of our 3 divisions has access to different databases (to streamline the 'customer experience' by letting reps focus on specifics).
As for the hold time - I have a LCD display that allows me to see how long someone has been on hold. For the past month now our hold time hasn't been over 10 minutes in customer service (if you call during peak hours *8am-5pm PST respectively). If you call after of before peak hours our hold time is next to nothing (if we even have a hold time at that) Our Tech support line hasn't had a hold time for at least 3 months now.
As for account verification - we accept the last 4 digits of your credit card, calling the account holder back at the phone number listed on the account, a secret word (which the user sets up at time of initial signup), or the last 2 characters of the password (after which the user would be required to setup a secret word).
I can't speak for AOL on these matters (for obvious reasons)