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AOL Users Will Need to Pay $2 a Month For Phone Support
destinyland writes "8.7 million AOL subscribers face a new 20% fee increase next month — unless they agree to never call AOL's technical support lines. They'll have to use AOL chat for support or the online help "portal" unless their issue is a failed connection — and they're being enrolled in the program by default unless they opt out. Ominously, AOL used the exact same wording as when they quietly changed their terms of service to allow them to sell subscribers' home phone numbers to telemarketers. 'Your continued subscription to the AOL service constitutes your acceptance of this change.'"
Wow. I'm surprised AOL still has that many customers.
Come on guys, let's get grandma off AOL.
as they descend in AOHell; desperate grabs at revenue are being made. It was tough to cancel before; no you can't do it on weekends or holidays.
After creating eternal September they are sliding to obscurity.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"Your continued subscription to the AOL service constitutes your proof that you are a fool and deserve to be parted from your money."
There, fixed it.
Oh no... it's the future.
My grandmother decided to leave AOL. AOL however, would not leave her. She kept getting billed, and could not disconnect for MONTHS after the fact. I never did find out what the end result was, but (in the past) it was normal for AOL to 'not' disconnect your service when you asked them to...
Will calling them to cancel your service constitute technical support? If so, this plan is ingenious!
Rumor has it that the once free IM service is now going to a $.10 per sent or received IM message.
Nostalga is okay but in this case who gives a flying fuck? AOL is irrelevant. They are a internet portal and dialup provider. I'm with the posts that say "hey i didn't know AOL still had users!" but I take it a step further in that I don't want to know either. Back when they had a huge market share they were relevant and their pricing practices deserved scrutiny, even if 99.9% of slashdotters thought it's service was foul. Now they have to compete for the scraps of dialup users who don't want to upgrade to broadband, and that market is neither vibrant nor growing. We don't post pricing practices of Juno or netzero, do we?
C'mon it can't be that slow a news day can it?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
What's astonishing to me is the number of AOL users I encounter who continue to use AOL even after switching to broadband, not because they like AOL's features, but because they think that's the only way to the internet.
"You mean I don't have to use AOL to browse the intarwebs? I don't understand!"
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
'Your continued subscription to the AOL service constitutes your acceptance of this change.'"
You mean the continued subscription because AOL has a retention pool designed to endlessly throw offers and incentives (including months of free service, if necessary) to keep their customers?
I've known people who have had to report their Credit Card as lost to get out of paying for AOL.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I haven't heard of them before. Are they new? You'd think they'd advertise to drum up business.
i think what they meant to say was "LOL"
Most of them tried to cancel but AOL wouldn't let them.
Years ago I got the impression that AOL was walking around carrying a pair of hand guns pointing at their own feet. At random intervals, they pull one of the triggers and shoot themselves in the foot. Once in a while, they pull both at once. AFAIC, this new policy is just AOL running true to form and shooting themselves in the feet.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Your continued presence within my eyesight constitutes acceptance of the assertion that I have a right to take everything of value you have. Wallet, jewelery, cash please?
One of those evil ones which, according to AOL Time Warner executives is the biggest contributing factor towards the twin evils of child abuse and terrorism.
Think it was called "Napster".
Unfortunately, the philosophy of "the customer is always right" went out the door with "congressmen listen to their constituents."
The good corporate citizens started screwing the system at the same time they learned use lobbyists have congressmen look the other way. Legislation made it harder for new companies to compete and the existing corporations said fuck you customers, there is no where else for you to go.
There are still a few good companies out there but they are unfortunately hard to find in this day and age.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
they can afford a vacation home, but can't afford internet for it?
Additionally, if it's in another country, and that country is in western europe or the pacific rim, they could probably get broadband there for half the current price of AOL.
Either way, they're paying a "tax" for that level of stupidity.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
You aren't kidding about grandmas.
In addition, it seems to me that AOL is tricking people into accepting this $2 increase. Let me explain:
My wife's grandma uses AOL and she told me that she got an e-mail that said that her bill will go up by $2 every month unless you click this link and answer some account security questions. I immediately thought this was a fake e-mail to get grandmas account information. I looked at the e-mail and it looks just like the false bank emails that I receive all the time. However, I called AOL and it ended being a true e-mail.
We have been trained to ignore e-mails with wording like this, how many old people do you think will just delete this e-mail and end up getting charged an extra $2?
Plus this is nothing new. Telephone-based customer service is at the customer's expense in lots of places around the world, because the person making the telephone call pays the bill. So it is typical for an ISP to charge a euro or so a minute for the phone call, billed via the phone company with the monthly telephone bill. Someone has to pay the salary of the tech support person. Of course, this can lead to abuse, since the ISP earns more money by inspiring people to call technical support ... but that is fraud. The American-style system, where the ISP generally foots the bill for the technical support, might lead to better service since it is in the ISP's interest to lower tech support costs, but in my experience, it doesn't work and instead causes across-the-board higher costs for customers (e.g., with Verizon). My experience with 1&1 in Germany, despite their high cost per tech-support incidence, was fantastic --- they make the U.S. look like they are decades behind.
Write on the back of your next payment to AOL
By cashing this Cheque AOL agrees it is their fault I am downloading Music/Video's and accepts full responsibility of my actions on the internet.
It would be quite humorous to see what they would do. or if they caught it at all.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
AOL: Now with 100% more terrible customer service! (Because you have to PAY for it now)
my wife had aohell before we moved in and i addicted her to broadband. at the time they were still charging $2.95 a month for the email address, which we tried fruitlessly to cancel, and they perpetually billed her credit card $2.95 a month for the next few months after which the card expired.
needless to say she received paper bills for about 3 months threatening to cancel her account. they never did and subsequently decided to pass out @aim.com email addresses for free. there really is a bunch of nuts at the helm of aol.
Paying for a utility that you aren't using 90% of the time is just money down the drain, whereas property almost always increases in value, usually by enough to offset taxes and maintanance.
Furthermore, depending on how trendy of a vacation spot the cabin is, it may not be all that expensive (ie much less than their main house in the city).
Besides, having dialup on the road is really useful. Motel internet service is a complete rip-off and many of them don't have free wireless.
You got modded funny, but it's actually very true. Before my area had ANY broadband, we had AOL. The local dial-up ISP started charging outrageous rates, so we switched out. (This was in early 2000.)
Anyway, after years of promises, we finally got broadband from our local cable company, and I called to cancel our AOL service. I was greeted by what sounded like a computer with an Irish accent. Even funnier was that he would literally sing the last part of every line he would say. "Hello, thank you for calling AOL, what can I do foorrr youuuuuuu."
I couldn't tell if I had reached AOL customer service or some mental asylum by accident. (Cue jokes.)
When I expressed that I was calling to cancel my AOL service, the man / computer nearly broke down and cried. My attempts at being stern about wanting to cancel were continuously brushed away with what sounded like begging not cancel, the promise of up to four free months, and extreme guilt. This man or whatever it was I was talking to was not going to take no for an answer.
I finally got out of it after nearly an hour of "Please don't cancelllll; You can continue to try AOLLLLLL for a month for freeeeeeeeee, and call back to cancel if you're stilllll not satisfieeeeeeeed."
I think cheating Death out of a contract on a loophole would have been easier.
Best "String" Ever!
Heh, even if AOL raised their rates to $30/month for dial-up they will still have 8.7 million dial-up users.
As P. T. Barnum used to say "There is a sucker born every minute." and to rephrase that "There is an AOL user born every minute."
The one thing that AOL has going for them, is that even computer illiterate users can use it, just pop in the AOL CD and let Autorun install the software they need. Most computer literate users have moved on to broadband and installed their own NIC card and broadband DSL or Cable or Satellite modems. Plus AOL has dial-up phone access from anywhere in the USA, you could be in some unknown town in the Mideast and AOL will have a dial-up number there to dial into. Like Branson, Missouri, any other ISP you would have to pay long distance to connect to their dial-up account in that city, but AOL has local Branson dial-up numbers and you don't have to dial into Joplin or Springfield numbers. But I heard that Juno and Netzero started to get a lot of dial-up number coverage in most of the USA now, so their $9.99/month dial-up accounts might start to get better than AOL's. But anyone smart enough will know that Branson resorts have Wifi access in their lounges and cafes. Just not the cheap *** motels. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
So they're going to charge you to attempt to cancel your service. It's amazing that they're still even around considering their shady business practices. If you want to know how not to run a business, you always have AOL as your guide.
Didn't you hear? We're not customers anymore, we're consumers.
Fnord.
AOL is hardly the only company to do this. Technical support is one of the most expensive parts of an ISP's services, and even companies with sophisticated products can burn many hours of technical support on fairly minor problems that their first-tier and second-tier staff have no chance of understanding, because it's not in the troubleshooting flowchart they use. Someone has to actually understand the problem, or have tried a similar configuration.
VMware does nearly this. Their dial-up and online support is, frankly, useless, and points you to the customer forums. unfortunately, those customer forums are so deluged with similar problems and no way to expire bad answers and get them out of the forum that it's quite difficult to search through and find the real answer.
Yes.
You and AOL are in a contract. Contractual law states that any one party cannot unilaterally change the material terms of the contract without concurrence in writing of ALL parties of the contract.
Since AOL does not ask for your permission to change, the contract is void.
You can send AOL a bill for breaking terms of the contract plus costs. Sue them in a small-claims court and get your money back.
Alternately if they fail to pay you can ask the court declare them bankrupt.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer