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Unauthorized Billing
By -

LAKE ALMANOR, CALIFORNIA -- My name is ** and I am 77 years old. I cancelled my subscription to AOL by phone in March of 2003 when I needed to move into my daughter's home because of increasing disability after several operations. After numerous months I saw that my Chase VISA card was again billed by AOL in the summer of 2003. I called Chase and they removed the charges. In December of 2003 AOL again billed me for service I neither was subscribed to nor did I receive. I contested the charge to AOL and Chase through certified mail. The charge was temporarily removed by Chase but appeared again in April of 2004.

I never received any correspondence from AOL although I have signatures from 2 of its representatives that my certified letters were received. In addition to sending certified letters to AOL I've tried to call their customer representatives. The hold time on the phone would be 45-60 minutes plus then the phone would go dead after apparently hanging up on me. After several tries I realized that I had no other recourse than clear my name and credit through the courts. I honestly believe that AOL is simply making the cancellation process so difficult that a consumer has to pay the bill for them to go away even if the bill was never incurred.

I researched the law and found that the applicable law was the Fair Credit Billing Act. After a many hours of research I filed against both AOL and Chase in Federal Court; United States District Court for the Northern District of California, 'Fair Credit Billing Act Part D Section 1666'. After filing my complaint (2) attorney's for AOL called and apologized profusely for the billing mistake, however, then filed their Answer to the Complaint denying any wrongdoing.

I also have a third party credit report stating that I am overdue paying this bill although the date is clearly within the legal dispute date (the law prohibits any creditor from notifying any third party credit agencies of disputed charges within the 60 day dispute period - the AOL charges were the only fees on my Chase card since I had paid the card off 100% long before this billing fiasco began).

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AOL Address Book Transfer
By -

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA -- I don't have an AOL account, but helping a friend to leave AOL to Comcast. I am helping this friend transfer his email address book. To do so is an absolute mess, a mess by design. I transferred my own AT&T email address book to other email accounts in minutes. I am in the computer business for 30 years and work with fairly sophisticated applications. So, when you go through an overly complex procedure to perform something you know should be simple, there is usually an underlying motive. The motive is that you'll stay with AOL if you see before you the effort involved in re-entering your address book for another service.

I've tried everything and haven't yet done the conversion. But, I won't give up. It's sad when a company's business strategy is to hold on to customers through technical intimidation rather than superior service. I still don't get why one even needs AOL and their overpriced service.

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90-day "RISK FREE" isn't free
By -

DETROIT, MICHIGAN -- I used my Visa debit card and signed up with AOL's "RISK FREE" 90-day service on 1-18-2007. Unbeknownst to me, I was at "Risk" of being billed $25.90 thirty days after using the service. When I called AOL to complain I was on hold for over 25 mins only to be disconnected.

When I finally was able to speak with ** (I'm sure this is not his real name) in their billing dept. he explained that their 90-day "Risk Free" isn't really FREE! That this "Free" service would actually cost me $25.90 per mo. Then and only then if I'm not satisfied with their service I could call and cancel and I would be refunded my $25.90 X 3 mo, which equals $77.70, but only if I cancelled within my 90-day "Risk Free" trial period. What the hell, is AOL that desperate for customers that they have to stoop to word trickery????

Hey, I'm from Detroit and if you set something on the curb and put a "FREE" sign on it that means it's free. Not that you can use it for a while then I'm going to knock on your door one day and say," Remember that old couch I threw out on the curb? Well I know I said it was free, but not really. You owe me $77.70 for using it the last 3 mo. My bad."

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Trying to Cancel
By -

I found this service to be VERY slow. Although, the company makes a claim that their "Web Accelerator (allows) for up to 5x faster web surfing". That is a lie. It was slower than my "Plain Jane" service. Today, I was trying to cancel a subscription with Netscape Internet Service. After being transferred to appropriate department, I was informed that if I cancelled my subscription, I would be charged an $89 cancellation fee. I asked why and was told I had a 12 month commitment.

Also, I was advised that if I disconnected the phone call, I would immediately be charged the $89 cancellation fee. They went on to tell me they had to read me some legal notice of my rights. What rights? You just told me I don't have the right to cancel. Be very careful before signing up with this company. They will not get any further business from me.

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Blood Sucking Leeches
By -

Spent the day on the phone with Mom trying to find out what had her upset. BACKGROUND: Dad died in March quite unexpectedly. Her answer to feeling alone - open a Netscape account. She decided this week that she needed to be in an assisted living facility and would be leaving her home with so many fond memories of a good life.

While arranging the turn-off of utilities, one company stood out like the wonderful people they are - Netscape (ISP). These wonderful people, in their best broken South Asian English, told her "sure, but you will still have to pay for the full year of service even though you are moving into assisted living and can't take your computer with you".

Maybe I am out of line here, but forcing a distraught widow leaving her home for good to pay for a service she can't use is despicably immoral at best. I hope Jim Barksdale's family gets the same wonderful assistance we received. Thanks Netscape - for nothing.

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Losing a Customer
By -

Well here I am, another unsatisfied customer of AOL. I have had any problems over the years with the usual billing problems and other horrors relating to that problem, yet I remained a customer until tonight when I went to log on and found I had been CANCELED. Repeated calls to reps who kept telling me a screen name I don't have on my AOL software at all did something against terms of service, and they canceled me.

Someone has somehow managed to get in either through my own laziness or through theirs is not the point. There was others using the account unknown to me and I'm unable to get them to realize it wasn't me, and I am unable to have an AOL account because of someone else not known to me. Their security sucks and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I've seen articles about the hackers, yet they refuse to help me with the problem, and refuse to give me access to someone who can.

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DUMP AOL
By -

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- I would like to voice my concern over AOL promotional free trial offers which I believe are meant to be so tricky that once you sign up, you cannot cancel. When I bought a new Dell computer 6 months ago, I received one of those free CD offers. I tried it just to see what AOL looks like and then wanted to cancel. My whole trial period did not even last 1 month. However, cancelling my subscription was impossible.

AOL started billing my charge card every month for services that I never used. Every time I called, they said they could not find the name that I registered with, so they could not cancel my account. It is very ironic that they had my charge card account number, but not the name!! Eventually, I ended up closing my Visa account to put an end to this unethical practice.

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AOL - Beware of Their Billing Practices
By -

I am not an activist. I have never been the type to complain or expect something for nothing, but I am amazed that AOL is allowed to openly steal from people. I bought a house in an area that did not have any high-speed ISP options, so I decided to try AOL. I signed up using the so many free hours trial.

After thirty minutes I saw that I could not live with dial-up speed. I contacted the chamber of commerce for my new town and learned of a new high-speed ISP using radio. I called AOL the same day and cancelled my service. I was online a maximum of thirty minutes total. Now I am being billed by AOL. I have called several times. I have sent them emails. They are rude and very evasive.

I would never consider doing business with them again. They are nothing but thieves. I am in the process of emailing my bank and see if I can place a block on my account to prevent these scam artist from stealing more money from me. And one footnote: I did not call them with a rude or demanding attitude. I first assumed they had made a simple mistake. I can easily see now that this was done by design and they have no intention of making this right.

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They Refuse to Cancel My Account!
By -

I have called and emailed repeatedly to cancel my account and they refuse to cancel it! Every time I call they tell me that instead of cancelling they will extend my account for 3 months with no charge. My emails are ignored. So, at least right now I'm not being charged for service, but that charge will start up again next month. I just sent them a nasty email telling them to cancel my account again... Now I will wait and see if they actually respond or comply.

They have told me that they can't take an account cancellation request by email, which I find very very hard to believe. I can answer the same account questions via email that I answer over the phone, so I don't see what the problem is. I think AOL itself is good, very user friendly, unless you actually need help from (gasp) a human being!!! But they aren't the only fish in the sea, and I'm sick of them being completely unreachable and expensive!

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1.0 out of 5, based on 4 ratings and
114 reviews & complaints.
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