Slashdot Mirror
AOL Fined for Making it Hard to Cancel Service
andy1307 writes "CNET is carrying an article about a settlement between AOL and New York State that includes AOL paying a $1.25 million fine and agreeing to reform its customer service procedures. The agreement stems from consumers' complaints that AOL customer service representatives would either ignore requests, or make it unduly difficult, to cancel their service, according to a statement from Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The policy probaby had something to do with rapidly declining customer numbers at AOL as more Americans switch to broadband."
why anyone would want to cancel AOL.
Now, if they could just do something about those CDs...
All I had to do was move to a different state, change my name and get a new social security number. After that, no more bills.
The software that AOL runs on keeps throwing a divide-by-zero exception, just as the following:
try {
int i = iRevenue / iNumExistingCustomers;
} catch (...) {}
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
From TFA: "Previously, AOL would distribute bonuses in the "tens of thousands of dollars" if representatives were able to retain half the customers who called to cancel their service, according to the attorney general." This just further goes to prove Scott Adams, the Dilbert comic creator, correct when he said that all management incentives lead to weasel behavior. Of course, it helps when they receive weasel directives in the first place. Also, is it too late to clone Eliot Spitzer? We need at least one of him per state, preferably more.
When I used AOL for a dialup ISP during the summers, I never really wanted to cancel. I just said I wanted to cancel, saying the features aren't everything I was looking for in an ISP. Then I waited for the free offer of another three months. It was a great way to get an ISP for the summer.
While canceling AOL service for a relative who moved to a nursing home, I went through hell with AOL customer service and ended up disputing the charges with her credit card company...
Long waits, ignored, you name it. The anti-bot word 'hellish' describes it quite nicely.
Count me among the hoardes that hate AOL. I have horror stories.
This article deals with one of them. I know a lot of people who have a hard time cancelling their service with AOL. My dad tried cancelling the service three or four times and ended up sending them a certified letter to get them to stop bugging him.
Another issue I have with AOL is that AOL digs roots very deeply into your computer. I don't know if this is still true since I haven't seen anyone using the service in a while, but it used to do stuff like replace your built-in dial-up networking functionality with its own, and even replacing various parts of the TCP/IP software and system files with its own. Uninstall? Useless. I've completely reinstalled many people's computers just to get AOL off of them. It's ironic that now their ads pitch the service as a way of protecting people from stuff that screws up their computer.
I've also dealt a lot with "This thing isn't working" complaints. People who can't get through, people who do get through but only very slowly, people whose other software starts experiencing mysterious problems, and so on ad nauseum.
There's a reason that AO "Hell" has such a bad reputation, and whenever anyone I know says, "America Online has a good deal on Internet service; I think I'll sign up," I always tell them, "I highly recommend against that, and no offense, but if you do, don't call me to come fix your computer."
The company I work for had a brief co-branding partnership with AOL, and as a result, all employees were offered a free year of AOL service. I work in the IT department, and almost everyone I know turned it down because the service, even free, just wasn't worth it. Actually, come to think of it, one guy I worked with gave his account to his parents and then spent the next year fixing their computer...
And speaking of AOL's declining membership and miserable service, I guess Time Warner has to be feeling a little bit better about their decision to drop AOL from its name. Ooh, cheap shot.
Meanwhile, if you're experiencing problems cancelling AOL, try one suggestion I found: call the phone number on your credit card statement.
About damned time someone got onto their case.Took long enough.
Now If that Attorney General would run for president and get that Texas Idiot out!
Geek Hillbilly
I don't know about you, but I can think of a whole bunch of companies that I have dealt with that must be overworking their paper shredders tonight!
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
RIP, Doug Adams
That is, if AOL employees are actually dumber than AOL customers.
[ OK ] [ Cancel ]
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Serves the bastards right...about 10 years ago, my GF at the time had AOL and cancelled...they just kept debiting her checking account, regardles of the flood of angry emails, snail mail letters, and phone calls she loosed upon them. In the end, she had to talk to the bank and persuade them to stop paying out to AOL. We could have stopped the abuse more easily by simply closing out the account, but she flatly refused to do that, on general principles (she was a very stubborn woman).
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Are there any ethics in buisness, or is it just about the money?
I tried to cancel my cousins service over a year ago. I was on hold for over half an hour. I hung up and called back, but this time selected "new customer" and I had a person on the phone right away.
Why should a new customer get a person on the phone right away, and someone who wants to cancel service must wait a long time?
Maybe one good first law is to say "the time wait for an existing customer must be less than the time wait for a new customer". That would gaurentee that customers can cancel without having to wait and wait and wait for someone to anwser their call.
A good second law should be that a customer can dispute any service and does not have to pay for that month. If a customer disputes too many months, the service provider can drop them. But that might stop the bad service. If AOL has an outage, or dial numbers are busy, then the person should have the ability to dispute that days charge and not pay. This should be very easy to do, and not require more than 1 minutes time of the consumer.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I'm surprised that AOL would take a position on such a controversial topic.
I just got my mother off AOL today. I read about how people would call, be harassed for 30 minutes and then told AOL wouldn't allow them to cancel. However, I read one post where they guy claimed he told them he sold his computer and was moving to Europe, and it took him 3 minutes flat.
So I told her to say she was going into hospice. She saw it as a game, so she even timed it. It took 1:30 min with the operator, who talked about how sorry she was for her.
That's how you do it. AOL only lets you go if you have a terminal condition.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
My friend cancelled AOL, albeit with great difficulty. When he called to end his subscription, they actually offered him new offers -- several times. They probably wanted him really badly for thereafter his ping nearly halved while playing Counter-Strike!
Not sure how it's offtopic... I mean AOL is making it hard to cancel their service and Slashdot is making it hard to read the stories (I guess they're trying AOL's technique, except this time they WANT us to cancel the service)
My UID is prime... is yours?
The policy probaby had something to do with rapidly declining customer numbers at AOL as more Americans switch to broadband.
I imagine it had more to do with the hundreds of thousands of obnoxious free ipod chasers signing up for accounts and then cancelling them.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Because he's the only public servant I know who actually IS a PUBLIC servant- as opposed to a bribed-and-bought puppet of the corporations.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
About 6 years ago my family decided to use AOL and billed its service to the Amex card. When it came time to cancel, AOL continued charging the card. No amount of phone calls, letters, certified letters and otherwise would get AOL to stop billing its then $19.95 to the card. We had to resort to cancelling the card entirely and having Amex issue a new one. I'm surprised it took this long for someone to take action against them and their ridiculous policies.
I signed up as part of one of those free ipod referrals mind **** scams. Anyway I canceled the service after never logging in because I couldn't get it to work(I don't remember the specific problem, it was about a year ago). Three months later I got a call asking how I liked the service. She gave me another member to call and cancel it. The lady told me that they didn't have a record of my membership. I never got a bill so no worries. I also never got my free ipod.
I've told people for the last 8+ years that the only way to cancel AOL is to call your credit card company and report the card lost.
AOL canceled.
Who will guard the guards?
I can see why AOL would do this. They provide dialup service which is on the way out and not only that but they charge about three times as much for this doomed service as their competitors. If I ran AOL TimeWarner I would probably have a "no cancel" policy as well, that or kill myself. One of the two.
To pay for this settlement, they will add another ad banner to the main AIM window. Expect an AIM update soon.
And who gets the fine? Not likely the consumers that had the problems to start with.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I work at a credit union (the largest in the world), and we get people calling in *all the time* complaining about AOL/TW ignoring or being hostile about cancellation. I'll admit, i'm not going to assume much about the intelligence of AOL users, but still, if everyone is having the same problem, there's got to be something to it. It is absolutely the #1 problem company for cancellations, even above magazine subscriptions and people calling who tried to cancel their internet pornography.
My friend's family attempted several times to disconnect from AOL's service, each time without success. Even when they stopped paying the mounting bills, AOL steadfastly continued delivering their crap to their Sony Vaio.
Actually, I would hate for AOL to stop giving/sending/forcing out their CDs... I mean, they are pretty much the #1 source of ammo for my home made spinfusor. I might as well have unlimited ammo hacks...
My biggest gripe with AOL was that it kept corrupting my computer's registry. I had to format my computer twice with this problem, and once more after "unistalling" it. I have never looked back.
that is exactly the experience I had when we dumped AOL for Comcast..the rep did everything in the book to act like I the only choices I had were for other grades of service...I had to demand, I had to say "we are done: I pay you nothing, you give me no service"
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I'm seeing many calls for him to run for President as he's truly a public servant. I can't agree more, but I doubt he would ever make it. The corporate interests would use their endless supply of money to find a way to discredit him, no matter how wrongly, and keep him out. It's pathetic, it's disgusting, it's the way politics works.
If he's not willing to play ball, he would never be elected.
But perhaps making him Attorney General of the US under a different President? That's a possibility, and I would like to see that happen. Then he could continue bringing cases like these on a national scale.
But I suppose all we can do for now is hope.
There should be some way to get consumer advocate groups the funds to launch television campaigns aimed at educating the public about despicable business practices like this. Something in the self-righteous, tongue-in-cheek yet dead serious vein of the anti smoking ads.
I was once on a physics discussion board, and they where using the AOL CDs as capacitors... They would solder a small cable to one of the sides (top side, obviously), then stack them 50/100/250 high. I don't remember numbers, but some guys said it worked excellent. I think one of the guys was using a five-pack of these AOL CDs to fire up a Tesla Coil... I don't recall it's use... but I've always found very amusing a "Tesla Coil anti-pissing-dog application" :::
You hook-up your Tesla Coil to a metallic trash can (has to be of the above-ground type)... then, when your most-hated man's-best-friend comes along and takes his typicall piss, you fire up the coil...
You can imagine what would happen when 375,000 volts shoot straight up the dog's winnie.
I haven't done this, and I suggest against it... but for some idiotic reason, I crack my self up laughing every time I think about it.
-AJ
[There... my 1st /. post =) Now if I can nail down how they make the italics and bold letters... and those nifty hyperlinked text phrases...]
Sounds like a fair deal to me.
Didn't AOL disable other internet service providers on your computer a few years back if you installed AOL 5.0?
I seem to remember something like that.
Once again showing that entities in power will do almost anything to stay in power.
Ignore Alien Orders
Twelve years I fell for one of those "free for 30 days" offers, and canceled within a week as I was already on the 'net and didn't see anything special about AOL. Somehow, probably because I didn't have a credit card at the time, they managed to keep sucking money out of my bank account every month for the next three months, no matter how much I complained to the bank, and to AOL. I never was reimbursed, and the only way I managed to make them stop was just to close my bank account.
you have a cool UID...shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out the italics or bold.
Just read the instructions on the Post comment page
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
They'll cancel you fast.
To work for AOL just so I can have a job that pays me to be an asshole. Score!
AOL back in the mid 90's allowed you to cancel your account right online? I definately remember cancelling Prodigy and also CompuServe (before AOL bought it) online... wouldnt take more than 5 minutes to do! Sign on Keyword Cancel Click Cancel Fill out a brief "Why are you cancelling" Confirmation Number Sign Off Cancelled at the end of your billing period! Those were the days!
I found it excessively easy.
After using one of their 50-hours-free-cds for half a month I decided to cancel after the free time expired. So I called them and told them to quit my account at the end of the month. The person on the other end of the line asked why, and I talked about lacking Linux support and so on... then he asked why I didn't want to quit NOW then.
I made my mistake there, by telling I still wanted to use the rest of the hours (perfectly legal and not against their TOS). He replied I could only cancel RIGHT NOW. I said no, thanks, I'll call again then and hung up. NEXT MINUTE, my AOL line was disconnected and my account erased. When I recalled the service, they said the reason was that I had been rude and insulting at my previous call. Now, three guesses what ISP I'll NEVER EVER AGAIN use.
No, it's not T-Online.
MedO
1. If you have a credit card that offers it, generate a "one-time use" credit card number, with a limit to cover your AOL bill for a month. 2. Switch your AOL account to bill to that card.
3. Call up and cancel AOL.
4. AOL tries to bill you after you cancel, the transaction doesn't go through due to the low limit you set. Shortly after that, the one-time card expires.
5. Profit!!!
Not sure what lengths AOL would go to to try to get their money (like reverting to the card # that had been in use previously), but the above technique works fine with porn sites that take your CC# for a cheap trial period and then try to bill you every month until you cancel. They try to bill the higher monthly rate after the trial period is up, the charge doesn't go through and I get, er, I mean, my friend gets an e-mail telling him his account with that site failed to rebill and is now closed.
Why bother dealing with AOL?
Just report your credit card as stolen.
How will we know who is going to destroy the internet now? Now where have the hordes of clueless AOL users gone? Is it possible to make sure they always have "former AOL user" attached to all the user names, just so people know? Maybe some RFID technology, or something? We need a plan to track these people before it's too late! Shouldn't a RFC be going around for that already?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Dear Cretins,
I have been an AOL/Time Warner customer since 9th July 2005, when I signed up for your 2-in-1 boardband internet/TV service. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.
Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:
My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website.... HOW? I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept.
The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my ADSL modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet servers downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm-midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend.
I am still waiting for my TV connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no-longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought Comcast were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose AOL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum -- incompetents of the highest order.
Comcast -- wankers though they are -- shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver -- any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief -- quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.
I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I since
Testing, testing... It's just a hyperlink test to slashdot http://slashdot.org/... Hey! Let's /. /. !!!
Hello? American Express? Yes, I would like to contest this charge and any other charge coming from this company. They are charging me for unwanted services. Yes, that's all. Thank you.
The policy probaby [sic] had something to do with rapidly declining customer numbers at AOL as more Americans switch to broadband.
Oh, crap. AOL has always been difficult to escape. Years ago they told my company that their service--which could be ordered over the phone--had to be canceled in writing. After we sent them a letter canceling the service, they continued billing the credit card account for several months.
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
I signed up for AOL sometime in 1998 because my ISP went down for a couple days. When I went to cancel, the girl talked to me for over two hours asking stupid questions like "What's your dream car?" I figured she a. didn't give a crap about her job b. liked me (no not really) or c. didn't want me to cancel.
Anyway, I guess I'm stupid for being on the phone that long, but I didn't have anything better to do and she finally canceled my account.
Please don't ban it. I might get thirsty.
I speculate this is merely a 'Warning' because 1.25 mill' is chump-change to AOL. I'd expect that if AOL doesn't move quickly on the promised changes, the fine will escalate to the tens or hundreds of millions. This harkens back to similar practices in the 1990's by Canadian cable companies who would automatically upgrade your cable service with each introduction of new channels, and you'd be stuck paying for it. They combined this with very aggressive Customer Srvice staff who would try to weasel you into a middle of the road package when you called to cancel. They got fined big time, in the tens of millions, IIRC.
AOL continually rips it's 'former' customers off. If you call to 'cancel' service you must use the terminology 'terminate' service instead of cancel. The reason for doing this is that 'cancel' doesn't mean the same thing to AOL as it does to everyone else. If a user moves to broadband or dialup, and doesn't COMPLETELY uninstall the software, the software will automatically log itself into AOL and re-activate the account. By all counts this is FRAUD, and could be considered WIRE FRAUD, and so AOL should be hauled in front of the feds on RICO charges.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/aug/aug24a_0 5.html
.
AOL TO REFORM CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCEDURES
Settlement Requires Company to Remove Obstacles
Consumers Face When Seeking to Switch or Cancel Service
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced an agreement that requires the nation's leading internet service provider to reform its customer service procedures.
Under the agreement, America Online (AOL) will alter the incentives it offers to customer representatives who seek to persuade subscribers not to cancel their service.
"This agreement helps ensure that AOL will strive to keep its customers through quality service, not stealth retention programs," Spitzer said.
In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, Spitzer's office began an inquiry of AOL's customer service policies. The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate system for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their internet service. In many instances, such retention was done against subscribers' wishes, or without their consent.
Under the system, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.
Many consumers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing.
The agreement requires AOL to:
Eliminate any requirements that its customer service representatives maintain a minimum number of "saves" in order to earn a bonus;
Record all service cancellation requests and verify action on the request through a third-party monitor;
Provide refunds to all New York consumers who claim harm based on improper cancellation procedures, up to four months worth of service;
Pay $1.25 million to the state in penalties and costs.
The claim form for New York consumers seeking refunds is available at Attorney General Spitzer's web site http://www.oag.state.ny.us/internet/internet.html
Spitzer thanked AOL for working with his office to resolve the matter.
The case was handled by Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Nieliwocki, under the direction of Kenneth Dreifach, who is Chief of the Attorney General's Internet Bureau, and with the assistance of Special Assistant Attorney General Gille Anne Rabbin and Investigator Vanessa Ip.
Attachment:
Claim Form
I'm on AOL dial-up right now, and it's totally easy to cancel service. You can even do it online! Even as I type this, in my other browser tab, it's loading the online cancellation form and AOL is doing nothing to prevent me from us#*Z(~U/$@!NO_CARRIER
I found cancelling AOL to be easy. I cancelled AOL shortly after my CompuServe account became and AOL account.
Damn, I still miss CompuServe.
1)Go into an aol chat room and start spewing obscenities. 2)Wait 5 minutes 3)Listen for *Goodbye* Account Cancelled!!!
Long ago, in a far away land called USENET visitors from the land of AOL would come and make damn fools of themselves. They would ask for the dumbest things and threaten non-AOL users that they would be kicked off the Internet because they were going to complain to AOL. Some were clueful or polite but rarely, often they would ask for advice about downloading Pr0n or Warez.
Any such question would be followed up by no less then 6 more requests of 'ME TOO!!!!". If they found your email address they would send you mail asking for advice about Pr0n or whatever. Mostly they would ask if you were a young boy or girl.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Hopefully, AOL will clean up its act. I hope that somebody also goes after the long-distance companies that pretend that they didn't hear you when you cancel their service. MCI tried to fleece me for four months of service after I moved last time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The policy probaby had something to do with rapidly declining customer numbers at AOL as more Americans switch to broadband.
This has long been a standard practice at AOL! I and many others that I talked to found it virtually impossible to cancel AOL service! In fact, I only ever got rid of them when I canceled the bank account that I had allowed then to do EFT's from. My bank continued to get dunned with transfer requests from the non-existent account, each of which cost the bank. The only way the bank finally got it stopped was to threaten legal action.
This was over 10 years ago. I told consumer groups about it, informed the BBB and bitched up a storm to every government office that would listen. Result: nada!
Now, more than 10 years later, one state is finally pursuing justice. Long overdue!
This has been their policy for years, all the way back to the days when "high speed Internet" referred to a 33.6 kbit/s modem and AOL was booming.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
When I first moved to the US, while I was still evaluating the different broadband options, I started with a free AOL CD just to be able to connect.
I got broadband a few weeks later, and forgot to cancel rigth away. When I finally called to cancel, they asked why I cancelled. So I told them the truth:
- "It was just a temporary solution until I got cable installed"
- "So you never really intented to keep AOL"
- "Well... no..."
- "So tou're just abusing the offer"
- "What ????"
- "This is intended for people who really wants to try AOL."
I was flabbergasted. And I didn't even complain when then charged one month service because I cancelled 2 days late - even though I hadnt logged in AOL for a month or so before...
Thats just rude...
The way I see it, you should be reporting them for fraud.
I beg to differ. When big companies fall off the pinnacle, there's a tendency to blame some outside force, like broadband.
The truth is customers left because they didn't find any value in AOL's services, evidenced by the rapid non-adoption of AOL's broadband service. My mom had AOL for years, she switched because of all the silly ads she had to sit through.
AOL fell down because they were no longer relevant to their market. Same thing will happen to Microsoft, Intel and Dell. Any big company that starts treating their customers like a revenue stream. It'll take longer, but it'll happen.
The really strange thing is the people who ran AOL into the ground will all walk away with big, fat bonus checks and option buy outs. Just like in the Bush administration: Failure is not a problem.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A reasonable fine would at least seek to negate any undeserved income generated by their practices. Suppose they overbilled 20 million customers for one month each. That's easily a half billion dollars.
if you weren't such a wanker you might have had some mod points
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Why does the link to www.gripe2ed.com have a Google referrer in front of it? (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=ht tp%3A//www.gripe2ed.com......). Is someone trying to use Slashdot to Googlebomb ttheir site?
Years ago I had to have an AOL account for work. When I tried to canel same thing. THey have been doing this for at least 15 years.
If they would put Firefox, OpenOffice, and other nifty open source software in the extra space on those CDs, people would keep them around instead of throwing them in the trash.
1) Why would AOL distribute apps that they don't control or support?
2) Those CDs would quickly become dated as new versions are released. Geeks wouldn't keep them around because they can generally download what they need.
3) Not to stereotype, but do you think the typical user who is interested in AOL dial-up service is also going to be interested in trying new/different open source apps?
4) Would this typical AOL user be remotely interested in the philospohical arguments behind F/OSS or even care that those arguments exist?
Oddly enough, there are situations where F/OSS is not the answer. People that try to push F/OSS where it doesn't belong are at best wasting their (and others') time; at worst they are being counterproductive and hindering F/OSS adoption with their zealotry.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
bigbigbigDaddy9inch420~@aol.com
When I was 14, I would sign up for the "free 250 hours!" trial deals with a "checking account" I got from one of those nifty cc/bank account generaters from a local BBS. It worked great until AOL stopped accepting bad info (probably around 1995 or 1996).
And I never had the hassle of canceling the service!
Netscape.com the so-called cheap internet dialup alternative to other cheap dailups had taken up that role. I used it for a month and the guy was begging me not to cancel. I guess saying lawsuit three times fast works better then clicking your heels in OZ. Besides I could never find Ruby slippers in size 13 mens and I look awful in red.
Toto get down....
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I wonder what would happen if you tried to cancel an account that you don't have. Maybe if you're really, really persistent they'll keep escalating and escalating in the desperate hope of finding your nonexistent account so they can not delete it. By the time you get to the CTO, maybe the whole system will just implode and stop churing out free building materials. That, or you can give the C?O you end up talking with the finger.
The really fun part would be six months later, when you start getting blank bills for the account you don't have.
I had the exact same experience when trying to cancel my DirecTV service. Months of phone calls couldn't stop the constant barrage of monthly bills. I would call and give them an earfull, and they would say they must have screwed up and not cancelled the service. I would get a credit, and then the next months bill would come again. It took 5 months to finally close the account.
Seems like someone did the numbers and figured out what percentage of customers would adamently call to point out the mistake and keep on their case, what percentage would only notice after a few months, and what percentage would do nothing at all. Then if you weigh that against the scenario where they would canel your service on your first request, they probably saw a substantial amount of money that can be made off "screwing" up cancellations. Kinda like that commercial where the guy finds out they can save $1 million dollars by putting one less olive in every jar they sell. Over time the scam makes a ton of money.
Glad to see someone got called on it.
...you pay for the service, not service charges you.
No, really, this is how things worked in USSR and keeps working today in post-soviet Europe.
A service company (ISP for example) sends bill to you. Then you go to bank and pay bill by money transfer. Plain and simple.
What happens if you're not paying bill? They warns you a couple of times and finally cuts the service.
Much more effective way to cancel... Violate their Terms of Service blatantly. You could cancel your service within minutes that way.
Xbox Live does this too; you have to call a hidden number and wait a long time on hold. When someone answers you have to explain why you want to quit before they let you. I can't wait for the Microsoft / AOL Time-Warner merger.
If you cancel AOL they actually "deactivate" your account, and if you ever try to log in with any of the screen names anytime in the future, they bill your credit card which they have on file! I was billed six months after I canceled AOL because my sister accidently signed on. I had to dispute the charge with my credit card company, which didn't work, but I did manage to put a ban on AOL ever billing my credit card ever again for any purpose.
Just try canceling your Comcast subscription...
What part of cancel don't those people seem to understand? I still years later get calls from them asking for me to come back. I'm thinking of changing my name.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I haven't had an AOL cd sent to me for years... Starting to sort of feel left out of the game! Booohohooo. Please send me a cd! Pleaaaase.... Gotta hang them up to scare the rabbits away. Playing frisby with them, or just throwing them off to hear the wind-cutting sound is fun too... And what about that CD-wall project?
I don't think I've ever met a single person that hasn't been shafted by AOL. They're well known for autocharging a credit card of checking account despite three to five notarized statements of desire to cancel and when you kill the account they've been charging, they have the nerve to have their collections people call you to demand a new account to charge as well as back bill you for the time they weren't able to charge. I'm not the only person who has had to instruct their bank to deny all charges to AOL based on such a cancellation letter and threat of filing fraud charges against the bank and AOL if they didn't comply. AOL should be brought up on federal charges of some sort and brought to account for their long time behavior.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I went through a similar odyssey when I tried to terminate my Verizon Wireless cell phone account. Their web page has all sorts of automated ways to sign up for service or to modify your service. The one thing conspicuously absent is the option to terminate service. I had to call customer service and deal with a "customer retention specialist" who did everything possible to to try to talk me out of terminating my account. He was very manipulative and it really pissed me off.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Noob? Okay, Mister 762907...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
I worked at AOL for a while, (hence why I'm leaving this at AC), and while you worked there, you where allowed an "employee+1" account. Which means, you got a free account, which was yours.
.. now, I just wanted to get my money back for an account that was closed when I left... (the company I left for, pays internet, why would I pay $25 for dial up, when they will pay for broadband?)
You needed a credit card or a paymet method in order to do this.
I requested that they close this account when I quit.
3 months after I left the company, they charged me 3 months of service for 24.95 (3 * 25 AKA $75).
I called them up, because I never used this account, nor did I think it was right for them to keep on charging me for something I wasn't using.
I got transfered to a "aol cancelation expert"
This guy had no tact. I explained to him I was an employee, and I left, and came back with "so, you got fired, huh?", he tried his best to get me to continue my service, when I definately wasn't interested. So, it took me 20 minutes to get money back, which was mine, and listen to bullshit.
The tech side of AOL is completely different, but the sales side will do anything to keep you. And, I imagine they take over quite a few older people, and weak people who won't stand up to them.
I subscribed to AOL for a couple of months in 1994, and I don't think it was difficult to unsubscribe. I still get renewal CDs and DVDs in snail mail though.
I can't believe AOL still charges $24/mo for their *dialup* service. That price hasn't changed in a long time. You can get a basic DSL service for about $30/mo around here lol.
-eventhorizon
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
Years ago when I dumped AOL what worked for me was after sending them their form requesting cancelation was to go to several chat rooms and start some very strong antiAOL talk. Got me off AOL real fast.
zenray
I finally sacked up and cancelled my AOL account several months ago, after about ten years. It almost seemed to take ten years to finalize the cancellation with that call. Everytime I thought the deed was done, the woman with the vaguely foreign accent would present me with one more consolation prize to keep me on. And, every time she gave me the "Well, I can do such and such for you" spiel, I repeated the mantra: "Actually, I just want to cancel my service."
I found it helped to have the mantra ready beforehand, so it would roll off the tongue with ease. It paid off because I had to say it so many times, if I'd had to think about it, I might have just given in, if only to end the torture.
I was lucky, I think. My AOL account was cancelled, and they stopped billing me. But one thing is for sure--the lengths they went to convince me to reconsider a decision I had already considered at length made me very unlikely to ever, EVER return to AOL. In fact, mark that down as an impossibility.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Back in the day when I used AOL, I had an unlimited account (or so I thought) where they didnt mind how much I downloaded but after 90 hours a month I would not be able to login until the next month. They didnt tell me that and the fine print I read didnt make mension of that either. "Oh well" I thought, "heck I doubt I will use that much anyways and if I do it would be towards the end of the billing cycle". I couldnt log in, I wondered "hmmm why is that? I dont think I used 90 hours, I better ring them". So I did and they guy said I used 87 hours and I answered "yes so thats not 90 hours so why am I disabled?". He couldnt answer me and told me I would have to put up with it. Well I told him I wanted to cancel my account. "Hold please". About 5 minutes later (quicker then I imagined) a lady asked "what is you reason for cancelling?" and I said "coz your service is shit!". "Oh ok, would you like us to refer you to another AOL partner ISP?" she had the nerve to ask. I just said no and hung up. No more bills. No more headaches. No more AOL.
AOL's rebranded services like Wal-Mart Online are also hard to cancel.
Same crap. I've been trying to cancel mine for over a year. They keep mailing back postcards claiming my account information doesn't match their records so I can't cancel.
What I'm gonna do instead is cancel the credit card and let them stew about it.
...America Offline?
After that I never had any other problems from them. No billing or anything. I just stuck to my guns long enough against the guy trying to cross-sell me stuff.
Still didn't manage to get my PSP.
Point is, keep staying on the line and fight until you get the prerecorded message saying that you won't be billed by AOL ever again. I had no idea people were running into so much trouble.
What did you expect in a discussion centering on AOL? The spelling and punctuation associated with AOL in all its forms is inherently terrible. In fact, to even discuss language skills in the presence of an AOL discussion is to create a proverbial "blak holl" of spelling suckage.
Sorry, but you lost (or loosed) this one before it began.
I called them and after waiting on hold in the retention queue for about 10 minutes got someone.
They asked me why I wanted to cancel and I said their web browser was bloated and slow, and I preferred Firefox. They said I could minimize the AOL app and run IE if I wanted (I pointed out this didn't change the fact I was running a bloated CPU hogging program on my machine) then I said I also couldn't use my own mail program (this is before they allowed the IMAP access, so I couldn't send outgoing mail from my other email accounts since there was no outgoing SMTP server).
"So you want to use Outlook Express for your email?"
"No, actually I use Mozilla Thunderbird."
"What?"
"Mozilla Thunderbird," I said more slowly.
"Okay" the rep said "I have no idea what you're talking about." [little giggle]
"Perhaps we should skip this little interview then?" I answered coldly.
Bing. Got it cancelled immediately.
Now removing AOL, that was the hard part. I wanted to do it immediately, because they have that great EULA clause that if you sign on to AOL anytime after you cancel (which isn't hard when AOL makes itself the default everything in Windows), you're consenting to the reactivation of your service.
I had both versions 7 and 9 installed (for some reason the v9 "updater" just installed a second copy). My hard drive must have cranked away for over 45 minutes while the uninstaller ran. But it was still in the registry somewhere. For months after that, besides the IE 6 "provided by AOL" I would see my old screenname pop up in the most unlikely places when doing filling out web forms or on AOL/Netscape pages.
(posting anonymously for obvious reasons)
I challenge you to try cancelling a Netzero or Juno account! Those guys will cheerfully lie through their teeth to keep a customer.
Well, perhaps I'm a tad bitter, as I do phone tech support for this idiot company. I simply do not understand how United Online stays in business. It's almost as if they're deliberately trying to drive away customers. Requiring a proprietary dialer that constant corrupts itself, having said program use the most goddamn dumb default settings I have ever seen (Starting when the computer starts AND causing an error if the program's already running and someone tries to start it by the desktop icon! Brilliant design!), and charging for tech support by the minute are not ways to build good customer relations.
I'm glad your first /. post got modded up. You cracked me up too, love to see more physics geeks around.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
The only reason I had to cancel is because it is very easy to start again. I hadn't removed all of the AOL software the last time I canceled. My mother didn't know AOL had been canceled, so she signed onto AOL. She just clicked OK on a message box that popped up, and the $23.95 a month service was restarted.
I work in "retention" (meaning I take cancellation calls) at an AOL call center. I'm ashamed of what I do here but the money is so damn good that I'm doing it anyway, bad karma be damned.
The "saves rate" expected of us is 65%. Incredibly, we have to get two thirds of the people calling to cancel their AOL off the phone without canceling them. This pressure to hit these numbers causes retention agents to due some pretty unscrupulous things.
In training we are told a bunch of bullshit about the "value" of AOL. But that's not how it works when you get out onto the floor. Here's how it really works: You be a very good listener, repeat back to the member the cancellation reason as though you agree with them to give the member the feeling that you are to cancel their account. You be extremely nice to them and show empathy. This is to get them to let their guard down. Then you ask them to get a piece of paper and write down your email address and you start talking about keyword this and keyword that to confuse and distract them. Then you read the "full disclosure" which is a statement that basically says your account is not canceled. If they are not listening closely they will get off the phone with the feeling that you have cancelled the account even though you didn't.
Once you practice and polish the technique it works amazingly well especially on people who don't speak real good english, older folks, inner city types who have little experience dealing with good salespeople, hillbillies in Alabama and people who are just plain stupid. And since they are stupid they typically don't look at their checking or credit card statements and many months may go by before they notice that AOL is hitting them for $23.90 a month in automatic withdrawals. Do the math. It's a lot of money for AOL.
I am ashamed of myself. But my last job was tech support and I made $9.75 and hour. Here I make about $28 an hour. As soon as I save enough for a down payment for a house I'm getting out of here.
Mod Parent UP!! Very interesting. I didn't know that AOL was pulling that with the CDs, as well.
I wonder about Ted Turner. Why did he sell to that old grey horse of a company Time-Warner?
--
If you support dishonest and violence, don't say you are Christian.
You are an upper level executive at AOL. You can:
a) bust your ass for the next 20 to 30 years building your company and its reputation so that it can survive for several decades and serve society and future generations well.
b) take advantage of your company's good reputation, become unscrupulous, and make an easy killing for yourself with the huge bonuses generated and walk away with bags of cash before the shit hits the fan.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
They got big because their software took care of a number of problems. First, their much hated DLLs got the people online, when the standard networking on Windows (and Mac) machines were not easy to configure (or to use to tunnel IP). Networking was focused on the LAN, and auto-configuring workgroup LANs. Remember that it took til around 1998 until the two big OSs had really functional "network installation wizards" for ISPs. Also, both MS and Apple had their own online services circa 1996-1998, and had little incentive to help their future competition operate well on their operating systems.
(Even today, many companies have alternative network dialers for their customers. It's still that tough to get online, and there's still value in making it easy. The future will belong to the company that introduces no-configuration networking boxes that combine the router, managed firewall, and modem.)
The other thing AOL did correctly was put chat rooms and instant messaging into the core of their service. Other online services focused on message boards and treated chats as a secondary service. AOL went whole-hog for scheduled chats with famous people.
The facts are simple. People want to chat with each other in real time. The majority of regular people don't feel confident about their writing. The vast majority are intimidated by message boards frequented by college grads who write well. AOL, by having lousy message boards (they are garbage) and being a lousy place for bookish people, helped create an environment that was perceived as less hostile to their target market of average people.
Also, unlike the current internet, the high cost of AOL actually improved the quality of the users, at least in the chats. I think that was a happy accident for them. The Usenet and internet were great until the mid 90s, then it all went to hell. The exorbitant $25 per month fee and "silence the obnoxious" anti-free-speech policies of AOL served to keep the service a little more civil than the open services on the internet.
These are market forces in action.
Also, for all the disses against AOL software, it does outdo the web in some respects. For one, it has a better caching mechanism, so pages are downloaded only once. This improves overall responsiveness. The bookmarking is a little less confusing, because the authors use better titles. The "few features, big buttons" interface is easy to learn, even when they violate every GUI rule known to interface-dom.
I am not a big AOL user, though I did use it for work, and also played with it for a year or so just to see why it was so popular. It was okay. It's its own thing. Before you get the wrong impression of me, I've been online since the mid 80s, and have written networking software, so, please... I'm not a fool, but just a user trying to look at this dispassionately.
That's one of the dirty secrets of call center queue management. Even though your airline/phone company/bank/crappy internet provider will probably deny this they do prioritize customer calls.
For a phone company this is pretty simple, provided that you call from a number, which they can identify. Airlines usually have specific numbers for their SuperPlatinumSpaceZoomFlyer class of customers and how seedy internet purveyors do it, well, you found out the hard way.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I got dialup service from Highstream.net for my mother. It was about the only dialup service available in her town. She didn't use the service for more than a year (she was scared off the internet by all the horror stories of viruses, zombies, and spam). I tried to cancel the service. I sent e-mail, snail-mail, and made phone calls. I complained to my credit card company. Highstream denied any knowledge. I sent them copies of the e-mail with headers, and the return receipts from the registered mail, and forwarded copies to the credit card compny. Only after threatening lawsuits did they cancel the billings. I deleted all traces of the dial-up info from the computer so no mistakes could be made and incure additional charges. Sad that they have to do business this way.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
You just use html. There is a list with "Allowed HTML" below the textarea.
Fleur de Sel
They hire one person for new applications and around a hundred for people wanting to get off.
Scientist found sun to be hot. More at 11...
I had a dial up contract with Tiscalli and tried canceling when I got broadband. When I rang up, they insisted that the only way they could cancel was if I told them the order reference that came with the paperwork when I took out the service. Since this was several years ago I did not have the paperwork, but no matter what information I could give them, they could not tell me that order reference, and so I could not cancel. I did talk to my bank about blocking payment, which they were happy to do, but warned me that Tiscalli could then give me a bad credit for non-payment of bills. I finally resolved it by pretending I was just ringing up to get the order reference 'for my accountant to complete my tax returns'. They gave me the order reference straight away. Possibly someone more cynical than me would claim that they were deliberately putting artificial barriers in the way of customers canceling their service, but I could not possibly comment.
A couple of years ago I had an AOL dialup account that I no longer needed because I was switching to ADSL. I called the helpdesk and explained that I had ADSL arriving in 21 days so I'd like to cancel my contract effective from that date, or as soon as possible after, but not before.
The helpdesk guy told me I'd need to email the request, and if memory serves me correctly I was told to send the message to cancel@aol.com. I asked why I couldn't cancel over the phone, but helpdesk-guy was adamant that nobody on the helpdesk could assist me and that I had to use the email.
So I emailed them, detailing when I'd like the account to be terminated.
The next time I tried dialing up I couldn't login, so I called the helpdesk.
"Well sir, you sent a mail to the cancellation address so your account has been terminated."
They were, of course, happy to set up a new contract with new terms and conditions and a new minimum period before cancellation. I declined their generous offer.
boakes.org
we're still trying to cancel out VAXen service agreement!
I imagine it had more to do with the hundreds of thousands of obnoxious free ipod chasers signing up for accounts and then cancelling them.
/. sigs about it).
If AOL got involved with the Free iPods scheme and got their fingers burnt, tough **** for them. They (and others involved in the scheme) are saying to people "Free iPod! Free iPod!". It's their business scheme; they rely on the ease of exit to bait people into it. They should't whine when it backfires and people decide to exit instead of remaining signed up to a number of crappy services that they were obliged to subscribe to in order to receive their "Free iPod" (*).
They can change the conditions if they like; of course, fewer people might sign up then, but that's their problem.
I don't always like the "Your business scheme sucks; not my problem" as an excuse to screw over businesses, but in this case they're promoting a "Free iPod", and they shouldn't ******* bitch if that's what people expect. That doesn't make people "obnoxious" if they try to obtain what was promised by following the rules (though it does if they put spam in their
Frankly, if I thought it was worth my time to play the scheme, I would. If AOL were misled about how the scheme worked, they should sue the promoters. Either way, you can't blame the end users.
(*) Matter of fact, the commonly-accepted modern use of the term by businesses and manufacturers is misleading in my opinion, because it's not "free" from obligation.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
My dad used to tell me that you could turn off a lawnmower by pissing on the sparkplug. Fortuneately I am the skeptical type (probably due to my father's joking nature) which prevented me from trying it out.
But my friend's father didn't share his sense of humor.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Although the local AOL center runs frequent ads for "Membership Retention Consultants", this is nothing new.
Nor is AOL the only service provider where cancelling an account is as much fun as performing root canal on oneself without anesthetics. My first ISP was "IBM" (the actually licensed a 3d party). Getting rid of that account required 6 months of consant vigilance to ensure that it didn't revive itself and start billing all over again. Ditto CompuServe. And, of course, they bill for the time you don't use. Often plus an extra month just for good measure.
I absolutely refuse to get a cell phone or sign up for any sort of cable or satellite TV service because if my job gets outsourced again, the LAST thing I want to do is fight my way out of a bunch of financial obligations each of which is practically a full-time job to be shut of.
manager/sales type explains to the engineers:
"Let me explain what video compression is..."
Dilbert: "Would you stop if I pointed out that everyone in this room except you is an electrical engineer?"
manager/sales type: "Zeros are round and fat compared to ones..."
Dilbert: "I'm begging you..."
Now if we (Time Warner) could just cancel the merger...
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
While we're on the subject, is there any way under the sun to cancel or delete a slashdot account? (Not a subscription, just an ordinary user account.)
No way? I didn't think so.
They weren't offering a free iPod. They were offering a premium to companies that could get new customers to sign up. These companies got prospecive iPod owners to sign up several times and then passed on some of the revenue generated as a free iPod.
Of course, 99% of the time that didn't happen because of course it was a complete crock of shit.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Don't pay your bill.
Works every time.
What?
I understand that the sales side wants to do everything possible to keep the customer, and even sometimes using the less of moral ways to do so, but it is the customers job to listen to what is being said on the other side of the phone. Alot of call centers will tell all employees to use LAST as a way to stop a problem from becoming a compliant or cancelation (Listen attetively, Apologize for the inconvenience and express concern, Satisfy the customer and add vaule , and Thank the customer for taking the time to speak with you and the chance to make things right). Many companies that either do out sourced work (like one of my last) will go through a script so that everything is in place to make the sale, the workers are trained with constant rebuttels for just about anything you can think of, and if they cant answer, they will direct you to someone (another dept.) that can. If you dont pay attention and you dont listen, and you do allow the (sales rep/cancel person) to take over complete power to the call (which is their traning) then your screwed. They will talk fast, assume you have no questions and are not listening. Not always is there fine print, which I can understand, but when you are being charged for something and you have no idea why, assume its because you didnt pay attention in the first place. No, I am not a aol sales rep, but I have been in sales for way too long and seeing this as just the companys fault is just a lazy answer to a huge problem that most just dont want to admit their own fault. Yes they will coax you into something you dont want, they are in sales, and just because you think this is immoral for someone to work for a cancel dept. thats your opinion, but as mine in the past, I was just trying to support my son on a 1 person income. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, just make sure you are awake and alert when its all going down.
AOL is just one of many folks doing this. My latest experience was with BlueMountain--the guy on the other end was unbelievable--he just wouldn't give up no matter how angry I got. I remember a bad exerience with Real years ago and that tainted my view of them forever. A few years ago my group was discussing a partnership with them and I was dead set against it figuring that if they treated everyone that way it would negatively impact our postitive customer image. Another question: why is it only Spitzer is going after these folks? It's not like we don't have other aggressive politicians here in the northeast.
AOL, so difficult to cancel no wonder its number one.
AOL is losing its customer base to broadband. Broadband is mostly distributed via cable, and the most popular service is RoadRunner. Roadrunner is a Time Warner service. Time Warner owns AOL. They're losing their money to themselves. Why don't they integrate? This is ridiculous.
I had an AOL account years ago so I could chat with my mom. Eventually I wanted to cancel it. The first time I called they told me I might be charged for another month, and if it happened to call them and they'd refund it. Many months and runarounds later, I was still being charged. I ended up paying for six months of service I didn't want and finally ended up having to cancel the credit card it was on.
Check out what their spokesperson said.
"AOL is pleased to reach an agreement with the state attorney general of New York," Graham said, adding that it enhances the relationship AOL has with a certain segment of its members.
Oh yeah, it ENHANCES their relationship with that segment of their members who want to TERMINATE the relationship. Let's think of this in human terms: your girlfriend wants to dump you, and you keep calling her, showing up for dates, etc, as though you never heard what she was saying.
When she finally gets a restraining order on you, you tell your friends that this restraining order will enhance your relationship with her, in that she'll no longer need to fear for her safety.
What crap.
"We've been caught red-handed, screwing people who already don't like us and charging them for what they don't want. Sure, we're happy about it!"
Instead, they force people to wait on hold and then argue with some dumb rep. After that, NO ONE would recommend AOL to anyone.
I had a similar experience with Vonage. Their service deteriorated; I wanted to cancel. Maybe I would have recommended that other people try Vonage. But after they forced me to wait on hold to cancel, I tell everyone I know to stay the hell away from Vonage.
Netflix, on the other hand, makes cancellation easy. Do it anytime, on the Internet. Maybe one day I'll just get tired of watching movies. "Netflix is great," I would tell my friends. "I saw so many movies that I just got tired of movies. But I wholeheartedly recommend them." Their easy cancellation policy is one reason I signed up for Netflix.
One tip: get a credit card from MBNA. They have disposable credit card numbers. If you want to cancel a recurring service, just kill off the credit card number.
Penny - plain text accounting
Go look up his web page & send him a comment, check out where it goes.
A classic example of why you don't sign up for direct debit with any of your creditors or providers.
It's just as easy to set up recurring payments from your bank account, initiated by your bank. Then it all it takes is a password and two clicks to shut them down.
Automated billing to you credit card isn't great, but it's better than direct debit. At least the CC company has a dispute process that works for you in legitmate cases. If you have to sign up for something on line with a credit card, call their customer service after a month or so (assuming you're going to keep it) and arrange to have it changed to a bill. Then set up your automated payment.
Okay; now you're confusing me. Who are "they"? The people who run the Free iPod scheme?
Don't they get paid by the companies like AOL who gain new "customers" (they wish), give the end-users a free iPod and pocket the difference?
At any rate, if AOL chose to get involved in that scheme it's their business, not the end user's...
And do you mean that 99% of the time, the user didn't get the iPod, or the companies didn't get their customers?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This reminds me of the awkward call I made to cancel my free AOL service that I was running for around a year. (Back in the day, if you kept calling saying that you were trying to make up your mind, they'd give you another free three months).
I thought that they were just going to ask for my phone number or something when I wanted to cancel for good, but no, they wanted the master screen name.
AOL: OK, and your screen name, please?
Jakeypants: Umm... uhhh... well... JesusDied4MyPnis...
My optimist side hopes that this lawsuit will be seen as a deterrent by other companies, and the practice will wither away. Alternatively, maybe some other AGs will jump on the bandwagon, and enough companies will get publically smacked for this behavior to form a deterrent.
And Charter just hired some loser from AOL to run th e company. Ithink i'll be a dish man from now on.
Did I miss anything important?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I had AOL for three months (highspeed was not yet available in the area).
When I went to cancel, they offered me six free months to stay. I said "fine, but I really won't use it." but the person was adamant. I guess I could have been tougher and just said cancel it. Six months later, they tried to offer me another six months. I told them I had ZERO activity for the past six months. Finally after a few minutes they agreed to cancel. My cousin has been using AOL for years and never paid them one red cent.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
One can purchase a credit card that acts as a
debit card. That is one allocates a certain
amount of money to the purchased credit card
(CC# and includes security code), then one
uses that card to purchase or pay for things.
When the credit card is empty ($0.00), then
the card is disabled. It doesn't affect your
credit history, no interest charges -- nothing.
These can be purchased at Radio Shack. The only
drawback is that there is a $15.00 activation
fee, plus a $4.95 monthly fee to have the card.
This makes it expensive for small dollar amounts,
but eliminates all the other headaches. In fact,
a neighbor of mine is purchasing internet service
with this since he doesn't have a bank account,
credit card, debit card and poor credit. Everything else, he purchases with money orders
which charge $5.00 fees to cash paychecks.
I signed up for AOL to use the Free time (90 days, 45 days, etc.) a few years back. At the end of the trial period I would call in to cancel. Almost every time it was difficult to cancel the service, and would take serveral attempts. At one point I couldn't afford Internet, and it worked to my advantage as the reps would give me free time to keep me on. I figured it was likely that they were hoping I would forget to call at the end of the extended time and be charged, but as long as kept calling back in, the kept extending it. They even switched me from AOL to Netscape Online (same service, but older versions of the AOL software) to CompuServe.
From what I heard (rumor), the techs were held accountable for losing accounts, so they would do anything to keep from having an account disappear on their watch. Bad policy, and I don't know how AOL could afford such a policy unless enough people would really forget to make it worth it.
In any regards, I am certainly glad that they are being held accountable for it.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
If this represents the type of retention practices that are going on, it's little wonder that state attorneys general are getting involved in the matter.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
- Compose the following letter:
-
Insert letter in an envelope and seal.
- Place first class postage stamp on envelope
- Send it via US Mail to
- Alternatively, you may FAX the letter to
Sure, it costs you the price of a postage stamp or a 1 minute long-distance call, but if you place any value on your time at all, you will come out way ahead using this method.Your name
Your address
Your city, State and ZIP code
xx/xx/xxxx
Dear America Online-
I wish to cancel my America Online account, effective immediately. My screen name is: screenname.
Please confirm in writing that you have cancelled my account, as set forth in section 7 of the America Online Member Agreement.
Sincerely,
Your name
America Online, Inc.
PO Box 17100
Jacksonville, FL 32245-7100
(904) 232-4879
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Sounds like you're really bothered by the ethics of what you have to do to earn a livable wage. I was in sales once and had a similar experience. I still feel guilty about selling solar energy equipment to people who live where there wasn't enough sunshine for the systems to ever pay for themselves. But I had to eat. A growing number of Americans are finding themselves in that situation.
But you should know this. After you buy a house, you'll need even more money; insurance, taxes, maintenance, furniture, utilities, etc. I have some energy saving equipment that I think will benefit you enormously. It will save you a great deal of money in energy costs. If you don't want to purchase, there's no obligation. Just send me a letter explaining why you don't wish to take advantage of my offer. Make the letter on a 3x5 index card in handwritten block letters in blue ink.
The strong-arm AOL tactic isn't surprising. They are way too expensive for BroadBand anyway so no wonder people are migrating to other services. Just as an aside note; I cancelled AOL after 5 years (what did I know) and switched to a DSL service. I still have friends on AOL and they cannot get email from my website email address -- AOL says it's SPAM, which it certainly is not!! It's just a simple website, no ads, just me, some writing and pics. I tried to fix the problem with them through calls and clicking here and clicking there but there were too many SENSELESS hoops to jump through so I just use my DSL address. STUPID SHITS.
One night when I was house sitting my grandma's house, where there was only a dial up connection, I got bored and started drinking. After about 6 beers, I found an AOL disk and decided to install. I screwed around with it for a few hours and went to sleep.
I obviously didn't want the account, so I called a few days later to cancel it. They completely refused to close it. They basically told me that I had to wait the remainder of my free month to cancel the account. Not wanting to do this, I straight up told them that I signed up for the account when I was drunk and bored, and I never planned on using it. The AOL guy told me (dead seriously) that what I did was "extremely dangerous" and I could get myself in "a lot of trouble" doing things like that. He said that if I ever did that again, there could be "serious consequences."
Needless to say, I took extra care to watch my credit card at the end of the month to make sure they didn't charge anything.
Start by saying "This conversation is being recorded for quality control purposes. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Please give your full name and location".
Back in 2000, I was using AOL on top of Earthlink dial-up... it was pretty nice... $10 for as many hours as I wanted...
then I received a bill for like $200.00, IIRC.
Turns out that my account was somehow switched from BYOA $10/unlimited/month to $10/5hrs/month + $6 for every hour over the initial 5. Mind you, I set up screen names for the rest of my family... 50-hour months were not out of the ordinary...
At any rate, I called AOL, explained that I had been a member for a good year or two, and that the change was obviously a mistake since we had used roughly the same amount of time each month... "why would I make a change to pay more?"
Since I said an unauthorized change was made to my account, I was almost automatically transferred to AOL's fraud dept.
The person I spoke to from the fraud department emphatically denied that anyone but me could have possibly made the changes and was very blunt - I would be paying the whole charge. Oh, and it had already been billed to my credit card... "have a nice day."
I immediately asked to talk to her supervisor but got the same spiel.
Pissed... I called my credit card company. The rep I reached was awesome... she treated it as though my credit card was physically stolen. In effect, she prevented AOL (or anyone else, for that matter) from charging against my account. Then, she marked the account to prevent AOL from making a charge in the event that the $200 bill had already gone onto my "pending charges."
Ready to play ball, I called AOL back...
I ended up talking with a supervisor who was generously willing to cut my bill in half and offered an apology for the whole mess. Mock-worried... I whined that cutting my bill in half was pointless because I had already been charged.
Miraculously, the guy was able to issue a credit to my account for about a hundred dollars... despite the fact that it had been closed for about an hour at that point. Oh, and I hadn't been charged for the $200 yet. w00t.
When everything was said and done, I wound up actually getting the "refund" and was never charged for the erroneous $200 AOL bill.
I'm not sure what was worth more to me... the extra cash... or the sweet satisfaction of knowing I screwed them for trying to screw me.
Yes. You forgot to add "I'll be modded down for this", and therefore your attempt to appear a cool, individual thinker who is above Slashdot's hive mentality failed to get +5 Insightful.
Don't worry, thought, I'll help you: mod parent down !
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I suppose this is more of a post about CNET than AOL, but what does "make it unduly difficult, to cancel their service" mean? Is AOL getting fined because they offered a free months of service to angry customers'? If so, every business in existance is in trouble; offering discounts to angry customers is standard operating procedure. Or did AOL do something more?
I haven't had AOL service for 8-10 years. IIRC, they asked why I wanted to leave, then offered (another) free month, then did-the-deed. Canceling my Qwest phone service was far, far more difficult.
Oooh! Good call. I probably should have also thrown in "a Beowulf cluster of Bushes is stupid" for guaranteed moderation Nirvana. Thanks for the pointer!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Must... resist... temptation...
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Oh great now were are gonig to be slashdotted.
FragHARD or don't frag at all
You could also hit the spark plug with a hammer to shut the engine down!
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Once my contract expired I called to cancel. Over two weeks, and three calls, I got these results:
I knew that cancellation should be few clicks online. So I reported AOL to the BBB, canceled the card that AOL was using for billing, and gave all of the honest companies my new credit card number.
I was expecting to fight a collection attempt, but I never heard from them again.
I usually just dump the oil out of it. The smell lets me know when it's off.
-twb
I've got a Tesla-cooked AOL CD on the wall next to me. It was fried by a quarter of a million volts from my friend's Tesla coil. The plastic is fine, but the metal was all vapourised away.
My friend also cooked a windows CD through the still-sealed box. There is just a little bit melted on each side of the box (he only needed the licence, not the CD).
Ohhhh, you mean your supposed to leave the oil in there....I thought it was just for shipping -- you know to protect it from rust on the boat from china :-O
FragHARD or don't frag at all
New meaning to the term 'Hot Dog' ???
buddy, you've hurt more people than you can imagine. shame on you for working for such a sleazebag company.
will be on all the other asswipes out there that have the same crap to deal with for cancellations. This move by Spitzer, against a former high-flyer, and a 'still' household name, will send a clear message to all the others out there.
I sent them a sharply worded letter of complaint and cancellation, but a friend of mine who teaches telecommunication law recommended I go beyond that and register a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in addition to the more obvious choices of the BBB and the FCC. It seems like a good way to get AOL's attention.
Incidentally, the BBB now has a nice automated system on line for filing complaints against AOL or any other misbehaving business.
Jeremy Butler
www.ScreenSite.org
www.TVCrit.com
Touche...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
LMFAO
I SMELL A AOL CLASS ACTION CLASS ACTION CLASS ACTION CLASS. My my my my. Seems like what GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. I seem to recall my young son signing up mistakenly as the Main Account some years ago and pasting my ex for a full year. As I recall, it was WITHDRAWN FROM HER ACCOUNT IN ONE FELL SWOOP.
"A growing number of Americans are finding themselves in that situation"
Americans are richer (as in farther away from starvation) than ever before.
There has never been a time in the history of the world, in any culture, where people haven't had to make the choice between honesty and gain.
Choosing to lie for money isn't right for Microsoft. It isn't right for AOL. It isn't right for me (or you).
True story:
We (my family and I) went to a store the other day, and at the entrance a guy was giving away t-shirts to anyone who filled out a credit application.
He waved a shirt at us and told us to fill out a form for a free shirt. My wife and I both said that we didn't need more credit cards.
He said that we didn't have to get a credit card, just fill out the top part of the form. So we each took a form and started filling them out, up to the point of the Social Security Number. Neither of us wanted the shirt bad enough to put down our SSN, so we thanked the guy and told him nevermind.
He asked why, and we told him that we weren't willing to give our SSNs for a t-shirt.
He said, "Just make up a number."
My wife said, "I'm not going to lie for a t-shirt."
See why I married her?
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Not just your opinion. In jurisdictions with stricter truth in advertising laws the US use is outlawed.
In Norway, for example, it has been established that "free" and "gratis" are actual wordws with actual meaning, meaning being "without compensation" compensation is not limited to cash.
So offers of type: "Sign up to X services and get an Ipod for free" are considered untruthful advertising. If you have to compensate the company in some way for getting the ipod, then obviously it's *not* free.
Same goes for "Buy 5 cans of spam and get a 6th one for free".
Obviosly you can do that, you only need to do it truthfully: the 6th can isn't "free". You could for example say: "Pay for 5 boxes of spam and get 6." or "sign up for X services and get an ipod."
In the US "free" in advertising almost *never* actually means free.