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America Online Complaint - 90 day "RISK FREE" isnt free - AOL 90 day
AOL 90 day - Complaint
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 min. only to be disconnected. When I finally was able to speak with "Chris" (I'm sure this is not his real name) in their billing dept. he explained that their 90 day "Risk Free" isnt 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." signed:Carole from Detroit
Comments:
Posted by Noneill on 2007-02-25:
You played into the hands of the marketing dept of AOL by mistaking "risk-free" with "no-cost". Your first clue was when you had to give a credit card / debit number.
Posted by beanbagbritches on 2007-02-25:
You left your sofa outside & charged someone to use it? That's just silly.
Posted by Nohandle on 2007-02-25:
Chery1, humorous analogy about the couch tossed on the street. I think Noneill has this one pegged correctly as far as risk-free vs no-cost. A lot of people I know continue to use AOL because they've used them almost since day one and have been pleased with the service. We have, however, read a number of complaints from those who attempted to cancel the service only to have their credit card charged month after month. Thanks for the warning for those who think they are trying a service "free".
Posted by Ponie on 2007-02-25:
After reading of all the hoops consumers have to jump through to discontinue AOL, I'm thankful I had the opportunity for cable service when I hooked up to the Internet. However, my neighbor has been with AOL and swears by it rather than at it. My Sis and another of my neighbors had Earthlink for a while, and their efforts to discontinue were just as bad as AOL. Wonder what makes these ISP companies think they're the only ones out there?
Posted by CrazyRedHead on 2007-02-25:
Don't feel bad, I fell for the same thing, but at the time they just switched over from free to risk free, and I failed to pay attention. It took over 2 months to receive my refund. Once the charge cleared my bank, they put in the request for a refund and have to wait for it to clear there bank, I think it was more like 3 months before I got my money back. I stayed on there butts until I got the refund, I'm very persistent when it comes to money.
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