AOL Tries New Tactic to Keep Customers

Jhon writes "AOL customer Vincent Ferrari tried to cancel his account, but a phone rep wouldn't let him do it. What he got when he tried to cancel his account was a lot of frustration. Now that's customer support!"

Comments

For his trouble

[Loconut1389]

Just for his trouble they probably signed him up again for 6 free months!

Post megapack

[linvir]

Link to mp3 recording. Putfile's proper site for this requires a proprietary download just to run the file, so have this link instead. They'll probably move it though to make us look at their annoying page.

Rep: I don't know what anybody's done to you...
VF: You're annoying the shit out of me
Rep: Well that goes both ways

Here's link to Vincent's blog. He's been dugg and farked and all the other usuals by now (which is why the file is now on putfile), so be gentle with the poor bastard's bandwidth. He's just come out of a very rough breakup, after all!

Also, this isn't a new tactic at all. That spin isn't in the linked article or anywhere else, so I guess 'Jhon' is to blame.

Opinions on this practice aren't as one-way as you might expect. It's kind of surprising to see a site called 'consumerist.com' reply to

Someone once said "Please cancel my account." I took that at face value and cancelled the account... three weeks later I was fired!

with

Good. You should have been fired.

Pricks.

Re:Post megapack

[Jhon]

so be gentle with the poor bastard's bandwidth.

There was a reason I didn't include a link to his site when I submitted the article. Oh well.

Re:Post megapack

[humphrm]

A little context here. No sense in including the rest of that quote when it doesn't suit your needs, eh?

Good. You should have been fired. When a customer calls to cancel, it is the company's duty to find out why. Perhaps there does exist a solution the customer was not aware of. Perhaps its just frustration that can be mitigated with some service discounts. However, if these don't work, the customer shouldn't have to argue with the Sphinx to get the service stopped.

Re:Post megapack

[linvir]

I might say the same to you.

the service stopped.

It's not just niceness, its economics. Chargebacks are more expensive than fairly and reasonably handling cancellation requests.

Economics? Chargebacks? What the fuck does any of that have to do with customers? What happened to the customer being right?

Re:Post megapack

[Karth]

Well, here's how it works:

The CEO doesn't care, cause he's got enough money that he doesn't have to, so he sets policy to be, hey, screw you, no refunds.
The vp says, ok, I wanna keep making enough that eventually I won't care, so I need to enforce the policy.
The manager says, ok, well, I need this job, cause I'm not a vp or a ceo, so I need to keep the policy ball rolling.
The employee says, I'm a wage slave who works hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, so I'll follow the policy.

The ball rolls the other way when the customer says,
"I'll charge it back." The employee says, well, that's 50$ per chargeback and how much ever for the service we'll lose, so I need to take this to the manager to get it approved. The manager approves it, cause losing that other money is much worse than losing a customer. The vp justifies this to the ceo based on bottom line, and the whole thing works out. Is it good customer service? no. Does it work in the end if you know to tell them you're going to do that? yep. Drop that bomb right off the bat and you'll be suprised how many places apologize and refund you up front.

Note to those who actually get to read this: Most credit card companies only chargeback up to 90 days! If you're getting screwed by a company like, say, aol, make sure to call them and tell them you're going to chargeback within 40 days of the bad charge, cause it sucks to get screwed out of that money.

Re:Post megapack

[humphrm]

Umm, I'm sorry but there is some level of customer retention attempt that is appropriate. Certainly not to the extent that Vincent Ferrari got, but a lot more than what the AOL CSR who got fired for cancelling an account gave. (and by the way, I do not in any way shape or form believe that that is the only reason he got fired).

A valid CSR retention attempt might go something like this:

Customer: I want to cancel my account

CSR: OK, can I ask why>

Customer: Because I never use it anymore

CSR: Oh, do you have DSL or Cable?

Customer: No, my phone charges are too high

CSR:: Ok, well before I cancel it, would you allow me to try to find you a better dial-up access number to try, which should reduce or eliminate your local phone charges?

...

Then from here, either the customer says "No, I've had it" and the CSR complies, or maybe the customer says "You can do that? Sure..."

Not every CSR conversation has to go like this:

Customer: I want to cancel

CSR: Done. Thanks. bye.

Re:Post megapack

[A Nun Must Cow Herd]

That's all well and good, as long as this can still happen:

Customer: I want to cancel my account

CSR: OK, can I ask why

Customer: No, I just want to cancel my account. I know what I'm doing, and I'm certain I don't want it.

CSR: No problem, it's done. Thanks. Bye.

Re:Post megapack

[dal20402]

I get any resistance, and I will imply very strongly that the rep is placing himself at very strong risk of personal legal expense.

Bullshit attitudes like this, not (usually) any fault of CSRs, are why customer service sucks so much for both parties involved. People like you are solely responsible for the low quality of customer service personnel, as everyone who can find his ass with two hands goes to do something -- anything -- else because of these unnecessarily unpleasant interactions. I dealt with your type for two years before getting out, and, even though it's been a long time, I can't just sit back and listen to you spout this sort of drivel.

Regardless of what you think of the policy, the guy on the other end is just a peon, not a "goon." He's doing this so he can pay rent, not because he enjoys harassing you -- got it? He has no control over the script. If you are upset by the script, ask to talk to a supervisor, or write the company a complaint letter. Ridiculous threats of personal legal action against someone with no control, that would get laughed out of any court on the face of the planet, just make you look like the irrationally angry, whiny moron you are.

Spouting empty threats not only doesn't help you, it actively hurts you. When I was a manager at an independent luxury hotel, no guest who threatened me or any of my employees like this would ever get a discount rate, an upgrade, a freebie, or hard-to-get reservations or tickets. Ever again. For life. Yes, we had records. And, if a guest was bad enough, the hotel would just somehow be full every time he called for a reservation, no matter who he talked to. People like you cost more in hassle and time we could spend serving the other customers than they generate in revenue. Good riddance.

On the other hand, we happily did all sorts of wonderful favors for people who somehow found it within themselves to display a tiny bit of class when interacting with us. Remember, the peon may have the ability to help you out or hook you up, if you do the same for him by letting him do his job and treating him like a fellow human being.

Jeez, the longer I sit here and stare at your post, the madder I get. But instead of threatening to sic a make-believe lawyer on you, I think I'll just go have a beer. Have a nice night, idiot.

Re:Post megapack

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Agreed, but there's a better way to ask the question than the way the AOL rep in this story did. The AOL rep in the conversation sounds almost like he's accusing the customer of something. Asking a question like "Is there anything we could have done differently to keep you with our service?" would draw out any complaints of problems with the service and is a request for feedback rather than an accusation. In my experience people respond better when they're asked for feedback than when they feel like they're being accused or harassed. In the case of the person whose ethernet didn't work, the conversation would continue:

Service rep: "Is there anything we could have done differently to keep you with our service?"
Customer: "Yeah, my service didn't work after I moved my computer to a different room."
Service rep: "That does sound like a problem. If we could fix that problem, would you still want to cancel your service or would you be all set?"

That transitions the call from customer service, "I want to cancel my account" call to technical support, "My service isn't working".

In Vincent's case, the call would continue:

Service rep: "Is there anything we could have done differently to keep you with our service?"
Vincent: "No, I just want to cancel my service."
Service rep: "Okay, then let me get the account details so I can cancel it."

Re:Post megapack

[bladesjester]

I have to say that, as a general rule, I really do agree with you. However, I have unfortunately, had experience with "customer service" people that made even me want to strangle them (and that takes a lot).

I call with an issue (generally something like "I'm moving and need to cancel my service") and try in a nice, civil manner to get a solution. I know what it's like on the other end of the phone. I worked my way through college as a network analyst and admin and had to field a lot of calls from people who thought that their issue was the only one in the world.

However, what starts out as a civil call on my part ends up as him taking an opportunity to "upsell" me on some service that I'm canceling because I won't be living there anymore or, in the case of my old dialup account many years ago, because I moved to dsl (Earthlink tried to bill me for a couple of months afterward if memory serves). This sort of thing really ticks me off. I realize that not all customer service people do it, and most of my calls actually go really well, but to say that bad callers are the sole reason customer support sucks is just a wee bit of oversimplification.

Re:Post megapack

[Rob the Bold]

Regardless of what you think of the policy, the guy on the other end is just a peon, not a "goon." He's doing this so he can pay rent, not because he enjoys harassing you -- got it?

You've said it right there, he's paid to harass. This is not a case of "just a peon". Perhaps not entirely "goon" either, since harassment probably doesn't reach the threshold of "terrorize" that the term "goon" implies. Still, a CSR trying to out-argue, out-badger or just out-annoy a cancelling customer is not completely blameless if the customer becomes annoyed and shows it.

You then give a different example (the luxury hotel) where politeness and class are appropriate. Presumably the staff at your hotel didn't try to pressure guests not to leave, then refuse to check them out and badger them until they gave up trying to stop paying for a room and just left with the meter running. Naturally, a bullying guest would not be welcome back, but this is an entirely different context. It's late, and I forget the debating term for this practice is -- some kind of fallacy.

Before your context-switch, the subject was dealing with CSRs who deliberately try to avoid processing your cancellation request. I'm sorry that you've had to deal with jerks from the other side. But it is not reasonable to assume that a customer who is repeatedly thwarted in their request will not become annoyed and show his anger in some way.

Your argument about banning a customer for life would actually be the ideal situation with AOL -- so in that case, if AOL followed your reasoning, the empty threat would pay off far better than the customer imagined.

Re:Post megapack

[jayloden]

I hear you on this one. I've worked customer service and collections on the phone to pay my bills as a college student. When I was on the phone with a customer, I would be as polite as humanly possible and do my job as best I could. After all, these are generally people with a problem, since they hadn't paid their bill for one reason or another).

The people who were calm and polite in return got their problem(s) resolved immediately. People who started yelling before I even finished introducing myself end up arguing for 30 minutes. I'd finally get them to calm down and work with me, the problem would get resolved, and then they'd end up apologizing to me for yelling at me. It's a lot easier to be polite in the first place, and make someone actually want to help you.

Re:Post megapack

[Bob9113]

Regardless of what you think of the policy, the guy on the other end is just a peon, not a "goon." He's doing this so he can pay rent, not because he enjoys harassing you -- got it? He has no control over the script.

No, I don't got it. He has 100% control over whether what is printed in the script comes out of his mouth.

Are you saying that for enough money anything is OK? Are you insane? (I guess the technical term is "sociopathic") Does what Enron did suddenly become OK because they made a lot of money at it?

Money has zero to do with morality. When you choose to enforce a policy, you are making a choice. The fact that you get a paycheck for it has zero to do with the moral decision. You may be willing to sell your morals for a given price, but that doesn't absolve you of the guilt.

If you steal bread to feed your family because the system is corrupt, that doesn't make the stealing OK. It makes it justifiable.

Your mother probably tried (but apparently failed) to teach you this as the doctrine of "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Now let's toss in that, unless this is a call center in a third world country, the hypothetical person reading an immoral script was not doing it because it was the only possible way to avoid starvation. He was doing it because he decided he would rather do that than sweep floors or clean toilets or any of a thousand other shitty, but morally straight, jobs that are available in this country. So he doesn't have impending doom to justify, let alone sanctify, his choice.

That doesn't mean a person can't, or even shouldn't, choose to sell their morals in this incredibly immoral society (by which I'm referring to the robber barons, not people who enjoy recreational sex - but that's my moral set), but it does mean that they are 100% judgeable for their actions. It's called "personal responsibility" and it is the exact same thing which we all find so lacking in congress. It's no better in an individual than in a public official.

Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[WebHostingGuy]

It got him fired when publicity came out. AOL has had a long history of this. I ran into this years and years ago when trying to cancel a free 100 hours account before broadband. The victim is probably Vincent who was just doing what his supervisor told him to do. But, atlas, that's what you get to be when the bottom falls out; the scapegoat at the bottom.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[radarjd]

The victim is probably Vincent who was just doing what his supervisor told him to do. But, atlas, that's what you get to be when the bottom falls out; the scapegoat at the bottom.

I got the same treatment a while back when I was cancelling an account from AOL -- not quite as bad, but close. The rep kept offering me free months in exchange for not cancelling. I didn't know how I got signed up for AOL in the first place, but that's a different story.

In any case, it seems more like an established business practice than a rogue representative. The AOL rep was pushy, but he was probably doing nothing different than he was trained to do, and had done before. Perhaps he should file a wrongful termination lawsuit, and see if AOL wants their training practices scrutinized on the record...

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[Jhon]

You haven't listened to the entire audio. "John" was over the line as a CSR. Vincent expressed he wasn't interested in any offers or anything and just wanted a quick resolution to the call and to cancel the account to which "John" said: "If you want me to cancel this account, you going to let me speak ... but you are going to listen to me if you want this turned off". He was more than a bit sarcastic.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[badasscat]

Vincent was a little unreasonable- 4 minutes isn't so terrible either. Vincent needed to be more patient, but has a right to cancel the account.

Vincent wasn't unreasonable at all. He answered John's first four or five questions. After that, he basically said "you're not going to convince me, so just cancel the account." At that point, the conversation is over.

Maybe John just isn't a good listener, or maybe it's corporate policy. I think it's a little of both; it seems obvious that AOL CS reps either get rewarded for customer retentions or punished for customer losses. So first you have a corporate policy that encourages annoying behavior on the part of CS reps, and then you have this particular CS rep who just does. not. listen.

I mean by about the third minute of the call, he's just going over and over the same ground. His entire routine seemed to be that Vincent uses the account more than he thinks he does. This is his sales tactic - "sir, would you believe it if I told you that you used this account for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT last week? Do you STILL want to cancel??"

But after the first time Vincent said "I don't care, cancel the account", that's it. You can't just keep saying "no, but seriously, do you have ANY IDEA how much you use this account?? No, really!" Because then not only are you being a stubborn ass, you're on the borderline of doing something illegal, which is charging somebody for an unwanted and unsolicited service.

It sounds to me like you're dangerously close to saying companies have a right to harrass you into backing out of a cancellation. They certainly have a right to OFFER customers something not to cancel, but they don't have a right to either guilt you into not cancelling or to otherwise harangue you about it. It's the customer's money, and it's the customer's credit card. In the absence of a contractual agreement, they have the right and expectation to be able to call and cancel at any time without getting any guff about it.

As far as I'm concerned, only one "cancel the account" should have been sufficient to get the job done.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[F34nor]

This was not his 1st call, that's why he's recording it.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[WebHostingGuy]

Yeah, he was probably fired from his current position and promoted to management.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[Billly Gates]

"It sounds to me like you're dangerously close to saying companies have a right to harrass you into backing out of a cancellation. They certainly have a right to OFFER customers something not to cancel, but they don't have a right to either guilt you into not cancelling or to otherwise harangue you about it. It's the customer's money, and it's the customer's credit card. In the absence of a contractual agreement, they have the right and expectation to be able to call and cancel at any time without getting any guff about it."

Actually AOL does assume it has the right to harrass you and its highly encouraged. I worked there.

You can not have more than 3 or 4 cancellations an hour and you must take a ton of calls with low handle time. In order to keep your job you must try to stop them at all costs! I am not saying this is ethical but I would have been rude too and nervous and thinking about my stats.

Its the job of the staff to protect AOL from the customers. Its backwards over there and I do wish someone would sue to change this. Many phone companies saw this and loved the idea and do the same thing with people trying to cancel. This is probably going to be the new thing.

But yes if you need to be rude back then so be it as long as the numbers are met for hte bean counters then things are good. The jerks there always had the best stats and the lowest handle time on the phones and the least amount of cancellations an hour.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[loraksus]

I got the same treatment a while back when I was cancelling an account from AOL -- not quite as bad, but close. The rep kept offering me free months in exchange for not cancelling.

Ditto, but when I tried to cancel (years ago), I talked them into giving me 6 months free, threw a reminder into my pda to call them in 5 months and 3 weeks and did the same thing over and over for just under 2 years. It was actually kind of crazy and was a running joke in the family for a while.
Free dialup access sometimes is nice, even in this day and age where pretty much every hotel has wifi.
The way I see it, this way everyone wins - the CSRs got their brownie points for retention and "Hey, umm... you do realize that I've had your service for free for 2 years" is a great way to kick the CSR into reality and letting you cancel without too much trouble.
Mooching free stuff off retention CSRs can be fun and profitable too. Hold times are usually the shortest out of all the branches too.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[NormalVisual]

When John started pulling the BS about "you are going to listen to me if you want this turned off", I'd have immediately told him four things:

• This call has outlived its usefulness, and is effectively over. You have failed to respond to my needs as a valued (?) customer, so please listen to what I have to say regarding the current status of our business relationship.
• I am sending a letter (return receipt) to AOL's corporate address indicating that I am cancelling the service and my dissatisfaction with the customer service I've received. I will be naming you specifically. AOL will have a difficult time at best trying to justify further charges when given written notice of cancellation, regardless of what their policy says is the "proper" way to cancel.
• Any further attempts to charge my card will be at the very least disputed. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Chargebacks.
• Both of us have been aware during the entire time of this call that it was being recorded - I was explicitly told at the beginning of the call, and you are already aware that you're always being recorded. What *you* were not aware of is that it was not just the call center that was making a recording. When we're done, this call and a narrative of my experience are going up onto the Internet and into the court of public opinion, as well as in my file for later use if needed. (This should perk up some ears right away if a supervisor is monitoring the call.) Oh, you're no longer giving your permission for the call to be recorded? Okay, I'll end the call right now, but everything said previously was still recorded legally as per the laws of my state, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

I just have no patience for companies that do business like this, and I really could not care less if it causes problems for the CSRs. It's not my job to be understanding and to make life easier for them. If I ask for an account to be cancelled, I neither expect nor want to be argued with. I understand the CSR will ask for a reason for the cancellation. I may give one, or I may not. I'm under no obligation to do so, and the CSR really needs to understand that - I personally look at such information as valuable business data that I'm not being paid to provide. His retention stats are not my problem. I will be polite until such time as the CSR begins to get uncooperative to my needs as a customer. Once that happens, I have no further obligation to be a decent human being and my generally cheery disposition will begin to degrade very quickly and not in a very graceful manner.

Re:Vincent was probably following procedure, but

[Lehk228]

start a network discovery scan of the entire internet, then portscan the ISP mail server three times a day.

your account will be closed by the end of the week

stop paying?

[LSanchez]

Couldn't he just stop paying the bill? Wouldn't that cancel the account? Or is there something that I'm not aware of?

Re:stop paying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most services will send you to collection for doing this. Somewhere in the contract that you did not read is a clause which names the levels of Hell through which you must travel to cancel your service, and non-payment of the service, even if your intention is to cancel and never use it, constitutes violation of the contract and you will be held accountable for all missed payments.

It is a bastard way of running a business.

I found this post from a former AOL techie:

As far as quitting AOL, and I'll probably get in trouble for this.....
AOL outsources all of their tech support help, like windows and Mac. They used
to do wintech and mac support in Jaxsonville FL (both north and south) Oklahoma
City, Tucson, and Ogden. Jax N holds all of the servers, like what used to be
up in Reston and Herndon VA (Also probably the old QLink servers in Vienna and
Herndon VA) Jax S does tech support, and what used to be in-house and overhead
accounts IE guides, rangers, any type of online staffing account. Inhouse is
those that are not in a real AOL call center but do tech support for them
When you go to quit your membership with AOL, It gets routed to either OKC or
Ogden.. Maybe some of the outsourced call centers also do this, Im not sure.
These people make MONEY by keeping you! it's their job to NOT let you quit!
They get paid $1.25 to "save" you. internally they call this the "save" queue.
So they get their regular pay (whatever that is.. knowing AOL $9-10 an hour)
plus $1.25 per save. This is why it's like trying to pull hens teeth to stop
your membership. Luckily I never HAD to work the Save Queue, I would have gone
mad. ;)

Re:stop paying?

[Asphalt]

Sure you can... unless you signed up by credit/debit card or eft. If that's the case, your only recourse is to close the account. Of course their response may be to send your AOL account to a collection agency after their internal collection fails.

I've heard from someone in the business who should know, that the collection agency for AOL does not report to CRA's, because the CRA's got so many complaints and disputes about AOL that they no longer list "delinquent" AOL accounts on consumer credit reports.

Seems the customer gets the benefit of the doubt these days when AOL is involved, and no harm is done to the all important "credit report".

Of course, don't take what I am saying as gospel. Periodically check your reports (if you care about such things) after doing this, and go through the appropriate dispute mechanism. It is second hand information from a generally reliable source, but it appears that AOL collections don't have any teeth whatsover. Mostly just a bunch of threatening letters trying to squeeze a few dollars out of the guillable.

All the law requires is that you make a "good faith" effort to cancel your account.

If you make said effort, then cancel the billed account, you are covered legally. And the shots of AOL suing over the "debt" are pretty slim.

standard procedure

[acvh]

it seems that "customer service" reps are trained now to intentionally make a caller angry in order to give them justification to cut off the caller for "verbal abuse". it's happened to me more than once.

Re:standard procedure

[Billly Gates]

%100 true. I tried to help everyone with their problems which was why I lost my job at AOL. My handle time went through the roof and you have to be rude so the customer can hang up on you.

Re:standard procedure

[Joebert]

I can actually get paid to piss people off !?
Fuck, I'm in the wrong business.

nothing new here, it's been happening forever

[swschrad]

AOhell got its name somehow, right? these tales go all the way back to Quantum Online running on the non-windows DOS graphical OS.

and they're all true.

It took me 10 minutes to get them to finally realize that with DSL, five years ago, I didn't want them any more. and I was lucky to be immediately dropped, perhaps because I used Quantum Online back in the v1.1 era.

IMO

[Drakin020]

AOL is an internet for people who dont know any better. With all the fancy advertising on TV with the people compeating in Professional sports and what not, that kind of stuff looks flashy to this idiot society.

Personally what I would like to do is take these commercials for instance the guy running the track....Yeah let AOL make you high speed with everyone else, but lets make this more realistic....Lets put this oversize hurdles in the guys way and call it SPAM or Spyware.

Or the kid doing the swim race, I would love to see him go at it then this huge shark come up out of the water and take him out in one gulp...I'd lable him Virus.

This is just a more realistic AOL.

not a new tactic

[Lumpy]

Comcast has usedthat for years.

Hell I used to be an employee and when I cancelled my service (Comcast is horribly overpriced compared to DSL+Dish, and yes kids DSL is better than Cable at least when VoIP is involved) It took 2 weeks to get it cancelled and the endless calls to offer me a "better deal" if I keep my service and upgrade to the uber digital HD PVR package, etc..

I finally had to go to a local office stand in line and refuse to leave until they gave me a final bill and a written service cancellation recipt.

The phone people get a kickback spiff for every customer they keep from leaving and will do anything to get that kickback.

AOL simply is using the same tactic.

Easy solution

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Hang up.

Call your credit card company.

Tell the credit card company to no longer accept charges from AOL because they refuse to cancel your account.

If you really want to play it safe then write a letter to your credit card company after the call that reiterates the request and the reason for it.

Re:Easy solution

[Darth Liberus]

When I used to do on-site technical support for home users and small businesses, this is the procedure I ALWAYS used to cancel AOL:

1. Call the credit card company. Tell them you are cancelling AOL and will no longer accept any charges from them. The credit card companies are all too familiar with AOL's billing practices and will thank you for calling ahead.

2. Call AOL and tell them you'd like to cancel your account. DO NOT ANSWER ANY OF THEIR QUESTIONS, just keep saying "I am cancelling my account. The credit card company has already been informed of this and will not accept any more charges from you. May I have the confirmation number please?"

3. Repeat #2 until AOL rep. gives in and gives you a confirmation number.

4. Verify that the confirmation number is, indeed, for cancelling your account.

5. Call the credit card company back with the confirmation number.

It was a serious pain in the ass and took from 45 minutes to an hour, but it worked.

Re:Easy solution

[slaker]

I just helped a 60-year-old man deal with this.
His bank couldn't refuse the transaction because it wasn't billed from AOL.com but as a point-of-sale transaction. In other words, instead of being a recurring monthly charge from a known entity, it was just like the poor guy had walked up and handed AOL his credit card once a month.
Which somehow meant that it was a different category of transaction that could not be blocked by the bank in question.

Even more humorous, the guy's son (now a 24 year old off playing GI Joe in Iraq) had set him up with the account around four years previous. He's been a DSL subscriber essentially the whole time, didn't even know he had AOL service. And AOL told him that his son would have to cancel the account. The one on the old man's credit card. In his name, not his son's.

After more than 40 minutes of arguing and another 20 talking to his bank, I think he's cancelling the card AOL was billing. I can't wait to hear that AOL forced the account back open, 'cause I'm sure that's what will happen next.

Re:Easy solution

[That's Unpossible!]

His bank couldn't refuse the transaction because it wasn't billed from AOL.com but as a point-of-sale transaction.

Uh huh, right. Four words:

"My card was lost."

Let's see AOL or anyone else continue to charge it once the old number is invalidated.

Re:Easy solution

[pyro_dude]

Alternatively just send lots of porn to people via their FlashMail, go on chat rooms spouting porn, sending mail to people over and over again, they will cancel your account on TOS. Of course only use as a last resort, but it'll likely get results once people start complaining about you.

Re:Easy solution

[arthexis]

Calling AOL should be the first step always. I work as a rep for a credit card center, and we get AOL calls all the time. If you haven't contacted AOL first, there is not a quick way for us to just stop the charges, since there is always bureucracy involved. It's faster for all the involved parties to just keep a firm "No, thanks" at AOL's rep.

Re:Easy solution

[NormalVisual]

who'd have guessed that Goatse Guy and TubGirl could be used for good as well as evil?

Unacceptable

[dmomo]

He was a scapegoat. AOL is responsible. They put unreasonable pressure on the employee to keep customers on the phone. They don't tell them 'how', they just tell them to make sure they do it.

This is the same way big companies get their retail outlet managers to stiff workers out of overtime/benefits. By giving them unreasonable goals and incentives that are only achived by doing things that a corporation doesn't want to own up to doing themselves. So, they pass they buck, the blame, but not the profit.

I would urge this employee to take action. I for one am witness to AOL doing this very thing. Remember, those calls are monitored. They can't pretend not to condone this activity. I am sure that there are ex AOL employees that were rewarded for doing the same thing.

Another test

[KarMax]

FTA:

Ferrari then posted the call online, and the response was tremendous.
AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company.

At this "sensitive" moment will be interesting to test the customer service by cancelling someone else's account...

John Doe - "Hello I'm Mr. Green i want to cancel my account.
Customer Service Rep - "Done. Good bye Mr. Green"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Sounds like the account was hijacked...

[Hamster Lover]

Either the retention specialist/customer service agent/phone troll was lying about the usage (huge surprise) or the account was hijacked. I have nothing against a company clarifying why you want to cancel -- they may make you a special offer or fix what is causing the issue -- but this is beyond ridiculous and bordering on criminal.

The problem is I am sure this has been standard operating procedure at AOL every single day for the last decade. Everyone that has experienced this level of customer "service" needs to complain to the FTC and hopefully they will investigate. If memory serves, wasn't AOL already investigated for this by the FTC in years past?

I used to work at one of the AOL call centers

[Billly Gates]

It is their job to prevent you from leaving at all costs. I dont remember the stats (I worked in the tech department) but I believe they wanted no more than 3 or 4 cancellations an hour. If you have more than 6 its time for you to clean out your desk and work elsewhere.

Or as they like to put it "Your keybadge wont work" as a polite way of saying your fired.

Its a very bad place to work and the bean counters call teh shots and make senior decisions on how its run everytime. I am surely not surprised it lost 30 million customers. They are very short sighted indeed and dont give a crap about anyone including their own customers. Just how they look to senior management at AOL corporate.

Also the call center I worked did some borderline illegal practices and they always change the name of the subsidaries they do some call center work because they keep getting sued for firing people for unjust causes. But I consider this outright fraud.

So if you know anyone who uses AOL and wants to quit, here is how to do it? Call the credit company and tell them not to pay AOL anymore. Problem solved and you get to save someone's job.

Re:I used to work at one of the AOL call centers

[uncleroot]

I used to do "retention" at an AOL call center and posted about it on Slashdot once last year. Go ahead, hate me. I deserve it. It's a crappy call center job that pays extremely well (50k a year for ordinary schmucks like the one in the recording and 70k+ if you're good) because it's so ugly what you have to do.

Let me tell you about AOL "retention". They have a mantra there "Saves attempts on every call". You will get written up and eventually fired if you don't try to run every single caller through their process they call "Member Connect". So the AOL employee in the recording, admittedly a really shitty example of a retention agent, had no choice but to make his 3 saves attempts no matter how adamant the caller is about "JUST CANCEL IT". People should make more of these recordings and shine some light on the shameful stuff they do there. It doesn't matter what your reason for canceling is, they have an answer and will attempt to close you with crude, but effective high pressure sales tactics.

"My computer's broke, I can't afford to buy another one and my phone was turned off. I need to cancel" - "No problem. You can actually use AOL from any computer work, school, library...

"The account holder was my father and he passed away so I need to cancel." - "I'm very sorry to hear about your dad that but since your name is not on the account you can't cancel it"

But mostly it's:

"I upgraded to broadband so I don't need AOL any more." - "Congratulations on your broadband! However, with your new high speed connection, your computer will be more vulnerable to viruses, hackers and identity thieves. AOL gives you the protection you need..."

Now here's where it really gets ugly: AOL makes a ton of money from people who accidentally create multiple accounts by running the disc over and over while trying to get online. So they call billing to complain about the multiple charges on their credit card a few months down the road. Billing and "Saves" are the same department now and if you tell them the truth about that they have multiple accounts you're going to have to cancel some accounts. So you deceive them by searching for the account by screen name only instead of payment method or telephone number in order to purposely not discover the additional accounts. Then you tell them that it must be their bank - "call your bank" - to get them off the phone without canceling anything.

You gotta understand that if you do the right thing and cancel the poor schmucks second and third accounts you're going to drag down your saves rate and your coach is going to be in your face telling you he's concerned about your saves rate. It's kind of sickening when the people your screwing over are little old ladies and inner city mothers with crying babies at their breasts.

Here's some lies I used to hear a lot on the floor:

"AOL was really slow." - "No problem! Just go to keyword: Top Speed and you can make it go five times faster!" Top Speed is the compression and caching that speeds up dial up a little and it's built into AOL. Going to that keyword just gives you a advertisement for something that is already present in the client. The reason it's so damn slow is all the ads that AOL pumps into everything they do. There's so many ads in AOL that they should give it away for free instead of $25.90 a month for crappy dialup ($30.90 if you don't have a credit card.)

"I'm having computer problems and have had bad experiences with your Indian tech support." - No problem! I'll transfer you to the "good" tech support located here in the US." There is no special tech support que that's only in the US, it's a lie. You just dump them back into the ordinary tech support que. And now days you have to sit through a long, painful session of talking to the IVR system before you even get to talk to the Indian tech support.

I good tell more but I'm getting sick thinking about it.

Also, telling your credit card company not to pay them will result in paper bills for the charges and if you don't pay those you'll get turned over for collection.

You're all laughing now. . .

[Who235]

. . .but someday you'll realize that guy was just trying to help Vincent.

He obviously needed someone to step in and grab him by the collar and say, "Vincent! This is a bad move, man! AOL is here for you! Don't you get it??"

But Vincent wouldn't listen and now look at him.

Not only is he AOL-less, but now he's been ./ed

No different than Dell/McAfee

[dsginter]

Try to uninstall the "free trial" of McAfee on any new Dell PC.

You can't - it conveniently gives you an error message. I've confirmed this on a variety of Dell PCs.

This isn't an accident. Sure, you can reboot in safe mode and uninstall it but they know that the average user isn't a geek (trust me, it takes an average user weeks/months to follow simple step-by-step instructions to uninstall Dell's McAfee and install Avast). So they prey on them.

It is about time that someone sued the pants off of them. Where are the ambulance chasers of the tech world?

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[alshithead]

"Where are the ambulance chasers of the tech world?" They're all AOL members...

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[DarkMantle]

Actually, the McAfee issue is on all PC's. With McAfee 2005/2006 if the firewall is installed you HAVE to uninstall from safe mode because it won't unload the firewall. This is true with Dell, eMachines, Gateway, and clones. I've seen this on alot of systems, not just Dell PC's.

Much like most of the time when you try to uninstall Norton to reisntall/upgrade it the next install fails because it doesn't uninstall properly. It's strictly because of bad programing. And why are you having them install Avast? I thought the point of antivirus software was to prevent viruses. Avast let 3 Viruses on a system in 1.5 hours, and meanwhile thought that windows was a virus.

Anyway, more homework before ranting next time please.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[enrevanche]

This is not just "bad programming." These companies know windows better than the 95% (or more) of windows software companies. They purposally make it difficult to uninstall. In they're daily testing they install/uninstall their programs multiple times. They know exactly what they're doing.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[Rick Zeman]

Avast let 3 Viruses on a system in 1.5 hours, and meanwhile thought that windows was a virus.

And that's wrong how?

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[alienw]

Avast let 3 Viruses on a system in 1.5 hours,

What exactly do you do on the internet? I don't even have an antivirus or a firewall installed on my XP box, and I have never had issues with a single virus or worm. The closest I came was maybe a piece of spyware or two bundled with something. How do you manage to pick up three viruses in 1.5 hours?

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[70Bang]

They are also known as 800-lb gorillas in the antispam market.

Some might think otherwise, but their presence in the anti world & proper actions indicate otherwise.

The big question I was curious about as I read through the transcript is: was it Charlie, Delores, Mike, or Chris, all with a very strong accent, but when you ask them where they are, "In America, just like you!"

I don't speak Hindi or Urdu, but I know such an accent when I hear one.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[Arker]

What exactly do you do on the internet? I don't even have an antivirus or a firewall installed on my XP box, and I have never had issues with a single virus or worm. The closest I came was maybe a piece of spyware or two bundled with something. How do you manage to pick up three viruses in 1.5 hours?

Let a normal use the computer.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[rhyno46]

You don't have to boot into safe mode. Do the following:
- Shut down every component of Mcafee (right click the icon in the system tray)
- Shut down the icon in the system tray (is it called "McAfee Security Center"?
- Now you can uninstall all of the pieces. If it fails, hit ctrl+shift+esc and use the task manager to kill any McAfee processes.

This worked for the last 10 or 20 systems I've helped clients setup.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[MP3Chuck]

Far from it, dude. If you 1) keep your computer patched and 2) don't do stupid shit then there's practically zero need for AV, and if you're behind a decent router there's no need for a firewall.

I, too, went many years without a single virus/malware incident ... and the only reason I use AV now is because it's mandated if I want to use my laptop on the the LAN at work.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[Fordiman]

Yes. They're attempting to make it difficult for a virus, run as administrator, to disable the antivirus software.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[whoever57]

Actually, the McAfee issue is on all PC's. With McAfee 2005/2006 if the firewall is installed you HAVE to uninstall from safe mode because it won't unload the firewall.

Well, that's better than newer versions of Norton which refuse to uninstall in safe mode.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[Flendon]

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean you aren't infected. Many viruses are invisible to the end user as they collect your personal info, use your box as a proxy for higher profit targets or just act as a zombie in a DDoS botnet. I laugh everytime someone says "I don't use AV and I've never had a virus." It's like a blind man saying "I've never seen it so it doesn't exist."

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[db32]

If you don't have antivirus installed, how exactly do you know you have no viruses on the machine?

Holistic Computer Repair?

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[Pentavirate]

I hadn't run an anti-virus for years. Finally a couple of years ago I broke down and got it just for the off chance I miss something. The first time it scanned, it didn't find a thing. No Firewall. Nothing.

It's easy. Don't open executables in e-mails. Don't view attachments from people you don't know. Don't go to shady sites.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[SphericalCrusher]

I've found it extremely easy to uninstall McAfee, as long as you remove the Virus Scan/Firewall/Spam Control before uninstalling the Security Center. I rarely ever get problems removing it, unless it's corrupted. Now Norton on the other hand almost always requires a removal tool (RNav and SYMNRT) to get rid of it all the way. Even if you uninstall Norton Anti-Virus, Live Update, WMI Update, and a few other installed components, it'll still sometimes be there and pose problems when you try to install other virus protection software.

Re:No different than Dell/McAfee

[j_kenpo]

!necesitas aprender español! The great thing about that is, el número dos usually takes you to the forign language units in most call centers, which is usally located in the US. FLU groups are usually bilingual, and two little words will get you back to dealing with a more understandable english speaker, "?habla inglés?". Of course, if the answer no, it doesn't hurt to actualy know a little spanish. It works for me about 4 out of 5 times. Unfourtunatly, they are starting to get Spanish, French, etc speakers in call centers in India, but usually those are Europeans who are bilingual, so it works out for the time being.

This is by far the easiest way

[patio11]

Don't get me started on trying to get away from the AOL behemoth. You can get to a fraud hotline at your credit card company of choice in mere minutes. "Hiya, this is Patio11: does it count as fraud if I'm getting billed without my consent? Because I've had this recurring charge from AOL for *state length of time greater than zero* after I called them to cancel..." BAM watch your problem go away.

Here's a handy state by state guide

[patio11]

I am not a lawyer, these folks are or have consulted one, use at your own risk.

Re:Fax 'em

[Bieeanda]

The parent post imparts the truth. A fax machine isn't trained to give you the runaround that a "retention specialist" will, won't disconnect you if the spiel isn't working, and (best of all) leaves a literal paper trail.

The guy that empties the fax basket? He doesn't give a shit; his job isn't based on the number of accounts he's managed to keep active.

Identity Theft?

[imaginaryelf]

So you faxed over "SN, pw, last 4 digits of CC, name, address" to some unconfirmed number that you got from the Internet? Why not offer your mother's maiden name while you're at it.

They've been doing this forever

[Arker]

It's not new at all. They were doing that back... '97 I think, is when I was first exposed to it. They made it just about impossible for someone to cancel. The information on how to do it is kept as far from sight as possible, when you finally find it your told you *must* do it over the telephone, when you call the phone line you get to sit on hold for literally *hours* in some cases, when you finally get someone, it's a kid who has been trained for one thing and one thing only - to outstubborn you. They are *required* to spend about half an hour reading speech after speech to you, ask you questions and get your responses and read more speeches based on them, all designed to get you to throw your hands up in frustration and give up. Cancelling your account without going through every question and every speech and exhausting the flow chart will get the kid fired. If (as many people do) you tell him to cancel your account and hang up to avoid the next ten minute scripted reply, he's trained to pretend he didn't hear that. Even if he does everything as trained, if he cancels more than a tiny percentage of the callers he gets, he'll be fired. It's absolutely absurd, and I don't see how these bastards continue to get away with it.

My advice - don't use AOL. If for any reason you *must* use AOL, use a one-time credit card solely for that purpose. When you're ready to cancel, send them a registered letter telling them you are hereby cancelling your account, and cancel the card. It may sound like a lot of trouble, but it's NOTHING compared to trying to the living hell of trying to get it cancelled by calling their cancellation department.

AOL Refuses to Cancel Service for Deceased Woman

[antdude]

Digg mentioned a story about a dead woman and AOL refuses to cancel!

Attorney General Already Fined AOL For This

[chromozone]

I got the same treatment from AOL. I was going to contact the Attorney Generals Office and found out Eliot Spitzer's Office had already settled with AOL - obviously to no good effect. The AE gets to make a buck and AOL figures the fine as a cost of business. The release from 2005:

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.

(New York State Attorney Generals Office) http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/aug/aug24a_0 5.html

You youngun's have it tough...

[NeuroManson]

Back in 1992, my AOHell acct. was closed instantly because I dared to tell an obnoxious chat room user to "get a life".

Maybe the easiest method would be to simply be annoying online?

Re:You youngun's have it tough...

[gothzilla]

Yes it is. The fastest way to cancel your AOL account is to join a religion chat room and be as abusive as possible. You have to get enough complaints for them to cancel your account for you. I've had this proven by several friends too.

Why would you not reformat the drive?

[NotQuiteReal]

Every new computer I have ever purchased - Dells included (Inspiron laptop was the last Dell) -- The FIRST thing I do is reformat the drive.

a) This usually saves lots of space and you can partition the way you like.
b) You know what you have, and only load what you want.
c) You can then image the minimal "clean" install for later recovery, cleanup, etc.

This method works wonders - my last el-cheapo HP Pavilion laptop went from 63 second boot time to under 30 seconds when it wasn't burdened with stuff I didn't want/need.

Just make sure you have any special drivers you'll need "on hand" before you do this.

Re:Why would you not reformat the drive?

[loraksus]

My variation on that is to boot it, toss a copy \winnt\system and system32 to another box on the network and then reformat.
Not having to go to a shitty website to download 30 drivers (clicking "I agree" to a 26 page license agreement for each file) saves me tons of time (especially for laptops, dear god, the freaking scroll wheel needs a driver?). Just keep on pointing windows to one of those 2 folders and you'll have a fully working system in far less time than running the installs, etc.

Re:Why would you not reformat the drive?

[alienw]

The 64-bit version would probably be roughly twice as slow. Remember, kiddies: 64-bits instead of 32 bits means you need 2x the RAM. Not to mention, Athlon 64s seem to perform better in 32-bit mode, anyway. Probably because very few applications actually use 64 bit integers for anything. 32 bits is generally more than enough.

Re:Why would you not reformat the drive?

[Arker]

The trend of putting the "recovery" files in a hidden partition makes it a bit of a nuisance. My last laptop included no media at all, and didn't come with anything allowing you to do a clean install of XP. It's all rather frustrating. You'd think the manufacturers focus would be on clean, fast, easy to use systems, rather than on near-useless extras that make their hardware seem slow.

You're obviously under the misapprehension that the manufacturer considers you the customer. They don't. You're the commodity. Their customers are the other big corporations that pay them to install their crap on the machine.

Re:Why would you not reformat the drive?

[qbwiz]

32 bits is generally more than enough.

8 registers, however, are not.

Re:Why would you not reformat the drive?

[Nerd4News]

You're obviously under the misapprehension that the manufacturer considers you the customer. They don't. You're the commodity. Their customers are the other big corporations that pay them to install their crap on the machine.

You got that right. I'm a recovering Dell service tech (2 weeks out of that hell hole) and the last new Dell I set up had 53 processes running right out of the box. Then you have the cheap 256 meg machines that paged out before the OS was even loaded. Add MS Office which had its preload crap in the startup folder and you got 7 minute plus boot times. Not to mention all the system/program pop-ups and time limited shareware upgrade notices they had to deal with. Many of these people were newbies or average users and just wanted to do email and browse the web. The crap was driving them nuts before I even got out of the house.

You and I would format the drive and reinstall but that's well beyond the capabilities of many of these users. Even the "Dell Decrapifier" is beyond most of them. And they're not about to spend $50 or $100 or whatever to have someone fix their new $500 computer.

Oh, and since this thread is about crappy service... In Information Week (6/12/06, pg 11) Paul English of Kayak.com says (in part) "Dell is in a customer service death spiral." That's being kind. I couldn't agree more. Virtually every customer (90%+) complained of long hold times, 4 to 6 hour or more troubleshooting sessions from brain dead techs or the guy named Sam or Fred that couldn't speak understandable english. Then when Dell did customer service surveys they'd complain LOUDLY and Dell would blame us because their shit didn't stink.

I had to deal with them even as an on-site tech. "The hard drive sounds like a coffee can full of rocks. I unplug it and the sound quits." "Well, lets run some diagnostics." "Huh? It's about to self destruct. Send me a GD drive!" "I can't until we run diagnostics." "But it isn't even seen in the BIOS." "You can run diagnostics off the Resource CD." And on and on and on. Or the poor woman who bought her 8400 to do work from home with a random reboot problem every few minutes. She spent 30+ hours on the phone over 6 months before they even sent a tech out. Then her warranty ran out between visits and they refused to help her any more. And the company I worked for that stressed customer service above all else refused to run it up the chain of command. Spineless assholes. I just couldn't do it any more.

Sorry, it wasn't you that set me off. It just looked like a good place to vent. Can you tell I'm glad I'm out?

That isn't all they do.

[The MAZZTer]

At college there are some serious limitations on p2p. I have managed to work around these since then (just gotta be careful not to generate any noticable traffic, and to encrypt everything) but before then I seriously considered using a free AOL trial. NetZero's free 10 hours per month just wasn't cutting it.

So, I go to the sign up page. I fill out some of the stuff (it's a multi page form so I'm submitting as I go) but then I see they need a CC number. I'm not about to give them that (what if I forget to cancel? etc, not to mention my parents handle my accounting and they would want to know why I signed up for AOL when I had internet at college). So I cancel out of the form.

THEY SAVED THE ENTERED INFORMATION EVEN THOUGH I CANCELLED THE SIGN UP. I wasn't even aware of this until a few days later when a rep called me and tried to get me to reconsider and sign up anyways. Luckily it was a one time call and I made it clear I was no longer interested.

Instructions are pretty clear here:

[globring]

I typed "cancel" into the AOL Help Search box, and it had a link to the following:

We value your membership with the AOL® community. However, we are really sorry that you're considering canceling your AOL® account. It's our mission to build a service that lives up to the high standards of the online community. We hope you've enjoyed being an AOL member and that we can help you again in the future. For security reasons, AOL accounts cannot be cancelled either online or through e-mail. You can get your AOL account cancelled either through phone, US mail or fax.
To Cancel Your AOL® Membership Over the Phone

To cancel your AOL account over the phone, all you need to do is call up AOL® Member Services at 1-888-265-8008. You can speak to our representatives to get your account cancelled. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

To Cancel Your AOL Membership Though U.S. Mail

You can request the cancellation of your AOL account through the U.S. mail. Just send your request to:

AOL
PO BOX 17100
Jacksonville, FL 32245-7100

To Cancel Your AOL Membership Though Fax

If you prefer sending in your request through fax, please send it to us at 1-703-433-7283.

Notes:

        * If you choose to write or fax us, please include a brief note stating the nature of your request, the primary billing contact's full name, phone number, address and handwritten signature.
        * In addition to that, for account security purpose please provide any one of the following:
                    o The master screen name of the AOL account
                    o The last four digits of the current method of payment (for your security, please include only the last four digits)
                    o The answer to the account security question of the master screen name.
        * Cancellation will take effect within 72 hours of receipt of your request and AOL will send you a written confirmation. Please note that AOL LLC reserves the right to charge and collect fees, surcharges or costs incurred before your cancellation takes effect. Thank you for using AOL

Why did the OP use the _telephone_?

[cprior]

I don't know about the english speaking part of the world, but in my country the phone is not part of the legally enforceable mean of contracting.

If they refuse to cancel by phone, write a letter and that's it. If in doubt, send it with registered mail. And yes, fellow Geeks, it doesn't even matter if you use a template in MS Word or KOMA-script with LaTeX!

I find the advice to---again---call the fraud dept. of the institution that handles payment for you potentially dangerous. If I had a contrct with AOL I'd sure know how to EOL that---the correct way.

But again, your legal system might differ... Mod me down then!

That's nothing

[dtfinch]

This link made front page on digg yesterday:
AOL Wants to Sell "Internet" to the Dead

They refused to cancel the account of her dead mother. Didn't make a big difference since all her credit cards were cancelled, but crazy nonetheless.

John was definitely following procedure

[Arker]

And that's what I think a lot of folks don't get here.

There are two victims, the customer that's put through this crap, and the poor kid on the other end who would have been fired if he hadn't put him through it.

And then actually DID get fired anyway, even though he was doing EXACTLY what he was required to do by his employer, because the case got publicised. But it's no abberation. This is EXACTLY what these kids are trained to do, and required to do to if they want to keep their jobs. The executives who bear responsibility for both of these hells are still drawing enormous checks, of course.

YouTube Link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY&search= VINCENT%20FERRARI

understandable that it's hard to uninstall

[r00t]

Every virus out there would perform the uninstall on your behalf if it were easy.

A good number of viruses do infact uninstall or otherwise disable the software.

So in this case, I can forgive a difficult uninstall.

An easy solution

[RKBA]

I always use an MBNA ShopSafe generated credit card number for all Internet purchases, and some telephone purchases. After installing a small unobtrusive program on your computer (Windows only, alas), you then have the capability of generating a perfectly valid and unique credit card number with an expiration date and maximum credit limit chosen by you for that particular transaction. If I want to cancel an MBNA ShopSafe credit card number (which I can do at any time), all it takes is a couple of mouse clicks.

Does anyone know of any other banks with a similar service? I'm sure there must be some, and I'd like to have a backup handy in case MBNA is merged or goes belly up, etc.

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[Fordiman]

RTFA. The dude's 30 years old and is paying for the account himself.

I understand that the rep may have been thinking 'hijacking', however how, exactly, would cancelling a hijacked account no be in Vincent's best interests?

The rep evaded the cancellation request repeatedly, saying that it was being used, it's online, etc. It's standard AOL tactics; try anything you can to keep the user from cancelling. I know, I've been there (I spent about an hour trying to convince a rep that I never even signed up for AOL, and trying to get them to cancel my account. Fortunately, cancelling the apparently compromised credit card was far easier). My girlfriend has been there (she spent twenty minutes trying to convince her rep to cancel her old account). AOL's retention reps are right BASTARDS to deal with.

Just do yourself a favor; before you go condemning this guy, sign up for an AOL free trial and try to cancel a month later. See how far you get.

The biggest secret of all....

[ImaLamer]

AOL doesn't make any money off of subscriptions. I'm just guessing, pulling shit out of my ass. I suspect however that their income is derived from their advertising and business partnership areas. AOL isn't an ISP, it's a BBS, started that way and nothing has changed. The big secret is that newspapers aren't being killed by the web and RSS, they are being killed by the new online newspapers.

AOL is the new online newspaper. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are all trying to become "portals", because portals are just electronic newspapers. They design the layout, pick the lettering and provide you with a digestible amount of ads and sales lines. It's not new media at all, it's the same damn thing. What do you read first thing in the morning? At lunch? The Internet has just given us newspapers that change on the fly and can actually work two ways. It's the same need, the same solution - information at hand. Entertainment, current events, comedy, debate, etc, it's all stuff we want and we get it somewhere.

Why do I say this? Look at the leading "homepages." A lot of people moved away from traditional portals like Yahoo or even Lycos to Google for a while, but now Google makes their own "home page" portal site because it "sticks" better (google.com/ig). Microsoft has made a huge technology jump from MSN.com to live.com, and could take a lead when Vista ships. The point is that all of these portals are fighting for your eyes so they can push ads or push you into doing business with their partners.

So what AOL is doing, and does, has a purpose. They don't even want to report you to collections. In fact, I'm sure they will overlook delinquencies when you are interested in signing up again. Free months so you don't cancel? Sure! No problem - don't even pay us if you don't want to. All they want is to have you come to them and request service. Cancel it in the first five minutes and you will easily get months free.

How can I say this? I work for a newspaper, in the circulation department. We aren't interested in the money people pay for the actual product. Even if all of our customers are delinquent we are happy - they are customers, we didn't "give away" the paper to them. In fact, at one time you could rack up hundreds of dollars in debt to us and we wouldn't bat an eye when you asked to get your paper restarted. (Now we are loosing money we can't afford that, they think) All that matters is that we can go the advertisers and say "we've got xxx,xxx people get the paper at home."

We always give away free "upgrades" to a customers subscriptions, not because it gets them to buy more papers, because they can be included in our daily circulation numbers. AOL is doing the same thing. Slashdot is even doing the same thing. Imagine if upon a six month Slashdot hiatus you decide to come back, what if then you've got mod points? Don't you think they are trying to get you to visit more to see more ads.

AOL is the newspaper, Slashdot is for us, CNN is for some, Yahoo is for some, MSN is for some, random-lusers-blog.com is another for one or two people. It all depends on the person. It isn't anything new, we've just got more options (and kick-ass search engines that can sift through it all).

Title should read: AOL Tries A Tactic From Every Other Media Provider's Business.

AOL lawsuits

[supersat]

Its backwards over there and I do wish someone would sue to change this.

They have:

• The FTC issued a complaint and ordered AOL to change their practices.
• There were two class-action lawsuits settled in 2004.
• Ohio sued and settled in 2005.
• Finally, most recently, the State of New York sued as well, and the agreement reached with AOL requires AOL to have a third party verify all cancellation calls by the end of this month.

Unfortunately, it seems like AOL is considering these lawsuits just a cost of doing business, and as a result, it doesn't appear that much has changed.

Re:AOL cancellation stories

[markhb]

I had an AOL account at one time, a decade ago. I didn't fit this guy's usage pattern at all (not used much, only had it a few months), and the rep cancelled it for me right away when I gave him the magic passphrase:

"I only had it so I could chat with someone who is now an ex-girlfriend."

Something tells me that I might have had a far different story to tell if the rep had been female.

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[Technician]

While trying to find a good dial up ISP in a new area, my wife jumped the gun and figured a free 30 day trial would get her online in the meantime.

A week later I picked an ISP and started service. Then came the fun of trying to cancel. My wife tried and failed and asked me to try since I was a guy and could deal with them.

I called and explained how we came by the account. It was never intended as long term. They tried to get me to keep the account. What worked was when I told them I was having trouble using my e-mail client to recieve POP-3 mail and asked how to configure it. They explained they didn't support it. I said I could not continue to use them because they did not meet my requirements. Case closed.

They don't want to let you go if they think they can meet your needs. Be sure your needs are not met by their walled garden.

Bah! I got kicked OFF AOL.

[clambake]

Don't cancel, just wander around the chat rooms saying you work for AOL and are a moderator of the forums until you find a real moderator and see how fast you get cut off permanantly. I suppose you could do some spamming as well.

AOL

[popsicle67]

I had this boss back in 2000 that tried to shut his off and they offered him 2 free months. He said No so they offered a third month. He said okay I can live with that. I worked for him until 2003 and he never got a bill from AOL. A friend in Las Vegas asked me to uninstall AOL from his comp because he was going to go cable. I uninstalled three different versions from his drive and we set up the cable modem and restarted and AOL pops up first thing then complains it needs to be updated to take advantage of a new deal AOL has. Thank god for Knoppix, i booted it up and went through all of the little cubby holes the Aol makes for itself(And enjoyed some popup free nudity) then rebooted windows and got an error message saying I needed to updateAOL because one or more of it's components was missing or corrupt. Eventually He found his windows cd and we did the three finger salute and cleaned up the drivewith a bootdisk and started over. Elapsed time= 12 hours, Elapsed beer= 1 case 4 bottles, Amount of rapidly thinning hair left on my head = none. AOL is only good for the free cd's. You can glue two together with fishing line for a hanger and hang it and several others in a fruit tree and birds will stay away.

I cancelled AOL with a 3 minute phone call

[starkravingmad]

Told them I was leaving the country next week. Checkmate.

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[jcr]

They don't want to let you go if they think they can meet your needs. Be sure your needs are not met by their walled garden.

What they want is completely immaterial. If I were unfortunate enough to have an AOL account to cancel, I would call them once to cancel it, and if they didn't do so immediately without any form of runaround, I would cancel by sending a registered letter to their general counsel, advising them that if they didn't terminate my account as of the date of the phone call and immediately inform me that they had done so, I would go down to my local courthouse, file suit, and ask the court to certify a class.

The key is to make it far more expensive to jerk you around than to just do the right thing.

-jcr

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually worked for AOL, in a different department, but we heard these stories hundreds of times, and I've personally reported them to the retention supervisors myself but if that call isn't recorded by AOL (only a small sample are recorded) then the consultant is given the benefit of the doubt. There are several supervisors who actually encourage you to do anything and I mean anything to hit your stats, but if you're caught, they deny it.

If he thinks cancelling the account was bad..

[mist]

..just wait until he gets to uninstalling the product ;)

AOL Reps and Class Action Law Suits

[BillsterJ]

I had the SAME thing happen to me. I tried to cancel my parent's account with AOL months ago and it took me no less than 3 separate calls to do it. The first AOL rep went so far as to LIE to me AFTER trying to convince her for fifteen minutes that I "truly" wanted to cancel it. She told me that she would give me two weeks just to "make sure." Then, she would "automatically" cancel the account. That was a blatant lie since I got yet another charge on my account the next month. When I called back fuming, they refused to cancel the account, even though I had the credit card it was originally purchased with and was age 19, until they got expressed consent from both me AND my parents. I suppose I can understand that, however the last call was truly absurd. My mother called telling them to cancel the account and the rep told her that "young kids like yours always lie about this sort of thing, he probably never called and want's to keep his email and account." My mom had to convince the AOL rep that I was not a hooligan.

AOL has an entire department dedicated to convincing people that they need to stay with AOL. The three separate employees all used high pressure techniques to keep us from canceling our account. These aren't the actions of individuals, but a company policy that breeds asinine and brash employees.

It's time for a class action law suit.

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[ultranova]

What worked was when I told them I was having trouble using my e-mail client to recieve POP-3 mail and asked how to configure it.

I find it disturbing that you need to explain why you are cancelling your online account, and in fact come up with excuses for it. I find it especially disturbing when combined with the other posts in this thread, explaining how they had to cancel their credit card since they couldn't get AOL to cancel the account, and how they spent an hour trying to get the account cancelled.

I think this is a clear example of what happens when the government isn't powerfull enough to force companies to behave. Those companies fill the power vacuum and stat behaving like medieval lords, treating people like as serfs. You americans really need to get rid of your delusion that only the government needs to be regulated; any entity that has power is capable of abusing it, and needs to be kept from doing so - which doesn't neccessarily mean laws, of course; peer pressure works fine for limiting socially distruptive excesses of human behavior most of the time. Corporations, however, are specifically designed to be shameless, heartless and powerfull, and should be held to the same standards as the government, since they are every bit as capable of oppressing and harming people as the government is.

Re:I hate to defend this dude, BUT...

[Pitr]

I find it refreshing when someone takes up the unpopular side of an arguement, and presents an interesting and unique point of view. Instead, it seems you've just ignored the basic rights of consumers to get what they pay for, and to cancel service at any time. If I drive into a mechanic's garage, and tell them to put their crappiest oil into my car, then they should damn well put in the crap oil. They can recommend I not do it, and say, "Are you sure? Is that your final answer?", or whatever, but if I get obviously upset after being quite polite for several minutes, they screwed up.

As for why people are uncomfortable talking to sales people, it's because that's part of how sales people are often trained. They make people uncomfortable, and use that to get sales. Here's an idea, if I want to buy something, I'll call them. Not to mention, this guy's not calling to buy something. He's done with it. He shouldn't need to talk to a sales rep, who's going to try to "sell" him on staying.

What's worse, where I live there seems to be an emerging policy with any service I pay for, that I need to give 30 days notice before the date I want service to stop. I can only assume that there's some law that was just passed that allows this, because I would think it to be legally dubious without specific exception.

The point is, this isn't about people's intolerance of sales people, this is about consumer rights. When someone wants to cancel a service, it should be cancelled. Period. And there's no way you can claim this guy didn't start out polite. He said "Please cancel the account" like 15 times before raising his voice, and never once cursed, or got personal.

Wrong approach

[Anonumous Coward]

Vincent's own terminology put him in the trap. Telling the rep "cancel my account" implies that the rep can argue. The right approach is this: "I have now informed you that I'm cancelling. That's all I have to do according to my contract. I am no longer bound by the contract no matter what you say and no matter whether you put the cancellation in your systems or not. I'm not in a mood for argument, so I'm going to hang up. Have a nice day and remember, if you charge me next month you'll be committing credit card fraud. [click]"

Don't believe he got fired...

[techstar25]

I was a CSR and TSR for a few years while in college, so let me explain.
1. AOL probably has several call centers all over the USA and/or the world.
2. There are probably several Vincents.
3. Vincent might not be his real name, or might be his middle name, or he might go by the name Skippy to his peers. So nobody knows a Vincent at the call center.
4. How do we know he got fired? By whom? Aol outsources their call centers, don't they? Can AOL force a third party company running the call center to fire someone? Chances are that Vincent got a raise and promotion by the company he really works for (not AOL). Vincent sounds like a VERY GOOD CSR. At the call center I worked at (in Heathrow, FL), Vincent would have been made a team lead, if management heard that call. I'm really not kidding. Needless to say, I quit that job as soon as could, but damn the pay was GOOD!

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[ultranova]

The difference is that governments have guns to make you do things. Corporations do not.

Corporations have money and can buy guns to make you do things. The only thing that's keeping them from doing that is the government. But even without guns, the corporation has enough financial resources to bankcrupt you (with made-up charges which are too expensive to defend against, for example); and finally, since government is so weak, it is pending to the will of the corporations, which means that they do have guns, even if it's their servant that does the actual wielding.

As for forcing companies to behave: How is AOL doing financially right now? I think the market will make them behave just fine.

I have no idea how AOL is doing financially. I do know that this thread is full of complaints about how the AOL behaves, so obviously their financial status - whatever it is - and the market combined isn't making them behave.

And why would the market make them behave ? The market is simply a decentralized distribution channel - a matter of logistics, not social control. The whole concept of an "invisible hand" has been proven wrong so many times that it's absurd how many people still seem to cling to it like a poor substitute for a religion.

Re:MOD PARENT UP plz

[ultranova]

The whole concept of an "invisible hand" has been proven wrong so many times that it's absurd how many people still seem to cling to it like a poor substitute for a religion.

Links?

Any story mentioning Microsoft that gets posted on Slashdot :).

Seriously, when this sites front page has several stories about companies abusing their power every single day, isn't it a bit pointless to ask for links to examples of such abuses ?

Remember, the "Invisible Hand" means the hypothesis that, in a free market, people will generally behave in a way that benefits the society since that way is also the way that benefits them the most. This is what all of those claims of "the market will fix it" are based on. It simply is not true - time and again the most immoral, sociopathic and disruptive behavior will yield most personal gain. Don't forget that one purpose - perhaps the most important one - of a corporation is to shield its owners from liability; surely there would be no reason for such a shield if moral behavior would be the most effective way of making money on a free market ?

The free market has its problems and the free market can't exist without a government in place. Economics 101 says that you at least need a government to enforce contracts or else a free market can not exist. There are also certain market failures that require government regulation such as natural monopolies and the regulation of public resources (ie open water fishing).

You need government to stop people from killing each other and looting the corpses, first and foremost. Then you need the government to provide the level of cooperation required to build the infrastructure to support a large enough population that an economy beyond simple tribal gift system can evolve. Thirdly, you need the government to keep any other governments from killing you and looting the corpse. Fourthly, you need the government to stop guilds, local influential people and such from regulating all commerce. And finally you need the government to make money, since without it the logistics of trading become a nightmare - and no, you can't simply say "I accept only gold", since you'll be spending too much time verifying that the customer isn't paying with painted rocks; you need a central agency that can (forcibly) stop people from counterfeiting whatever it is you're using as tokens of exchange.

The whole concept of "free market" is artificial. In no way is it "natural" to humankind; a mixture of gift economy and communism is (in the sense that that's what you get in a society without a central government of any kind). "Free market" is an artificial construct meant to handle logistics of distribution and production of non-critical goods so the government can concentrate to securing the production and distribution of critical ones; every point of it that isn't regulated and therefore supported (forced to stay in proper alignment) by laws is a failure point; there is no "natural free market" that would be protected by laws, it is entirely constructed by them. Somehow, it has become a substitute for religion for this age. Consequently, we have people chanting "the market will take care of it" and closing their eyes from the possibility that it won't; ironically, some of these same people will then turn around and laugh at religious people for believing in an invisible force.

Not saying that you are such a person; I'm just remembering how every story about commerce gets a chorus of "Market force! Invisible Hand! Don't doubt the wisdom of them, ye of little faith!" and every story about religion gets a chorus of "Anyone who believes in any invisible force is a deluded fundamentalist!" and can't help but notice that there seems to be a double standard here.

Well, this became a rant, and my only excuse is that it's late :(. Sorry.