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.'"

Comments

8.7 million?

[stinerman]

Wow. I'm surprised AOL still has that many customers.

Come on guys, let's get grandma off AOL.

Re:8.7 million?

[plasmacutter]

This surprises you after so many voted a potted plant back into the presidency after such obvious failure in 2004?

Re:8.7 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

This surprises you after so many voted a potted plant back into the presidency after such obvious failure in 2004?

Speaking as a potted plant, I find that remark deeply offensive to our species.

Re:8.7 million?

[spazdor]

I am a bush, you insensitive... etc.

Re:8.7 million?

[clampolo]

How many slashdotters here are using aol? i challenge you to reveal yourselves.

While I use DSL at home, I pay for AOL service for my mom and dad. They are old and find AOL to be the simplest thing for them to use, and they never do anything that would require them to use anything faster.

Re:8.7 million?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

ATT DSL comes with free unlimited dialup. And you can get it for $10/mo.

The death spiral

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

Correction

[Tx]

"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.

Keep getting billed

[Bomarc]

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...

Re:Keep getting billed

[MightyMartian]

The best thing to do is to call your credit card company and inform them that AOL is still continuing to bill you after you've already quit their service, and that you want to block any further attempts by AOL to bill your credit card. Unfortunately, for the money you've already paid, you're probably going to have to see a lawyer, and it just isn't worth it, despite the fact that fraudulent billing is actually a pretty serious offense.

You thought it was bad before...

[RockMFR]

Will calling them to cancel your service constitute technical support? If so, this plan is ingenious!

Instant Messenger

[quibbs0]

Rumor has it that the once free IM service is now going to a $.10 per sent or received IM message.

Re:Wow, 8.7 million still

[tilandal]

Most of them tried to cancel but AOL wouldn't let them.

Running true to form

[techno-vampire]

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.

Re:Using even after broadband

[techno-vampire]

I was doing tech support for an ISP back when AOL started its "Bring your own interet" program, where you could use AOL through other providers. I remember getting a call from a woman who complained that "Once I log on and start AOL, all I get is AOL. What do I need you for?"

I explained to her how once she'd opened AOL she was just using us to get to them and that if she wanted all of the Internet, uncensored, unfiiltered, all she had to do was not connect to AOL, just open her browser and have fun. She decided to cancel her service with us.

Holy Maligned Priorities Batman!

[plasmacutter]

The family members using AOL have the broadband service at home, and then they use the 56K at their cottage. Without this, they would normally be required to buy two Internet packages.

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.

AOL "scam" e-mails

[Phairdon]

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?

Re:AOL "scam" e-mails

[History's Coming To]

If I had mod points you'd get an insightful for that.

Here in the UK I got a final demand, big red letters and everything, for about £12 from N-Power, a electricity supplier. Strangely, I didn't have an account with them. Reading the small print (very carefully) revealed that it was in fact a "final chance" to pay a £12 fee and have your power supply *switched* to N-Power. It's a despicable way to operate, and seemingly becoming more common.

Hmm Interesting

[BuckaBooBob]

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.
   

In other news..

[Duncan Blackthorne]

In other news.. apparently AOL is still in business. Who knew?

AOL: Now with 100% more terrible customer service! (Because you have to PAY for it now)

Re:Using even after broadband

[Jimmy King]

I used to do tech support for an ISP who lost a few customers due to AOL, too. It was for a different reason, though.

They had both AOL and us (I don't remember why... probably just testing the waters of a normal ISP as they still had to dial into AOL to use it, if I remember right). Unfortunately, AOL was modifying the tcp stack so that DNS only worked when connected to them. If you uninstalled TCP/IP and reinstalled it, everything would work perfectly while connected to us. That is, until they connected to AOL again, it downloaded a forced update, and that forced updated caused DNS to only work when connected to AOL dial-up. Naturally, the customers then thought our service didn't work right and would stick with AOL.

I thought the first one was a fluke. Unfortunately, this continued to be seen by myself and others there on a regular basis for quite some time.

Re:Using even after broadband

[techno-vampire]

That was AOL 5, IIRC. Gave us a lot of trouble, too, because even after you'd uninstalled it, you still couldn't resolve DNS. One of our techs finally found a way to fix it: you not only had to remove/reinstall DUN, you had to hand remove a number of the .386 files involved, and make sure that when you reinstalled, you did not keep the newer versions. From what I understand, the AOL techs warned that it wasn't ready for release, but the marketdroids insisted. As I said, AOL is constantly shooting itself in the foot.