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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.
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.
RIP, Doug Adams
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 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
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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
OMFG yes.
I worked at a fairly sizable local ISP (40000 dialup customers at the time) when 5.0 came out.
We served a lot of rural areas- upstate NY; adirondacks. So a lot of people would dial into our service so they could run AOL over the top.
Installing 5.0 completely hosed EVERY other dialup connection on the computer. And a good portion of the time, it would hose LAN connections too!!!
Christ, I will never forget how the phones were lit up for the next 3 weeks.
There was supposed to be a class action lawsuit over that version, but i never heard what happened to it.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
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...
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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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 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
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 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!"
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!
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.
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.
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.
They hire one person for new applications and around a hundred for people wanting to get off.
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.
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.
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
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)
- 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.
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.
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.
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