To AOL: "No means no"
 

A man tries to cancel his AOL account but the rep won't let him

Found this through Snopes.com and it doesn't surprise me in the least... I dealt with similar "please don't leave us" when I canceled my cable/internet with Comcast.

I remember we had AOL way back. My father kept the account because he had no idea there was such a thing as AIM.

None of us used the goddamned thing.

He called to cancel once....twice....three times that I witnessed. Eventually, he didn't want to deal with it anymore so he handed the phone over to me.

I pretty much had to go through the SAME SHIT this Ferrari guy had to go through. I got confrontational, bitter, and generally pissed off. They kept asking questions like "WHY DO YOU WANT TO CANCEL?"
"DOES IT FUCKING MATTER. CANCEL THE ACCOUNT."

Someone needs to DO something about this bullshit.

Wow, That rep is in Idiot. This is Why I don't like to dabble with big computer companies like Dell, AOL, HP, and Microsoft. They want to just fuck with you. In Fact I recently did some work that involved both the computers in my house, however, that work couldn't succeed due to the fact that the other computer was a Dell and It wouldn't let me network the computers together!

Hah, AOL apologized to him? I think they should go around and apologize to more people. Because AOL pulled the same thing with me, my father, and his sister. When we called to cancel AOL was very hesitant to do it. They ended up trying to offer a few months of free service or upgrades. Anything to keep us from canceling.

They actually didn't end up turning the account off untill much later. When they finally said they would turn it off they actually left it on for another month or two. Then billed us for the service before shutting it off. >.>

Are you sure it was because the computer was a Dell, or was it perhaps because you did not configure it properly. The only hardware reason that a computer would be unable to be networked is if it lacked a NIC. You're going to have to explain this one to me.

Also AOL has the mark of the beast, will bring about the apocalypse, all that jazz.

Oh dear! It sounds like these reps are trained to push you to keep the account. AOL sounds terrible with all these accounts people are bringing up of cancellation problems. Maybe they're not allowed to tell you that it's part of thr job to gather the "reason" why the customer wants to cancel the account, since they'd get in trouble. However, I think that kind of situation was rather excessive.

Well, not AOL per se. Though I did build my giant orbital sun-powered death ray out of discarded AOL CDs, so I guess they're partly to blame for bringing about the apocalypse.

Aside from that, AOL is shit, and anyone not entirely computer illiterate knows it. At this point I don't think they'll ever be able to get rid of that negative image they've built for themselves over the years, no matter how much they spend on flashy commercials.

That's what happened to me when I cancelled my cell phone service. The lady basically tried to sell me 10 other plans. "Well it looks like, based on your usage, you really want -this- plan." So annoying.

I heard an MP3 of this over at Something Awful weeks ago, funny stuff. AOL is truly gay.

Also, in case you guys don't know, you can fax them a cancellation form or something, and not have to go through the hassle.

Uh, what? This sounds like something my mom might say.

Well, has anyone heard about the woman who tried to cancel her dead mother's AOL account? The rep she spoke to actually told her that her mother would have to cancel it herself.

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/...ead-182185.php

This is just sad.

Haha, bunch of dicks, trying to make you stay with them even if you don't use their services anymore. I've heard lots of shit about AOL but this is probably the worst.

I've never used their services for anything and I never will. Go Shaw Canada!

And the most offensive thing, even more so than the "easy cancellation" process, is the fact that they still charge the account, even when being on the "free trial." Gotta love that aspect too.

What's even worse than this is what AOL recently did to my girlfriend.

She had AOL when she lived in a college dorm. Each month, she had her AOL fees automatically deducted from her checking account. Upon each billing statement, there would be a notation that $XX.xx was taken out in AOL's name and everything was hunky dory. She would cross-check the billing statement AOL sent to her place to make sure everything was on the level. She never encountered a problem.

When she graduated and left the apartment, she cancelled the account. It took a little pressure but AOL relented. The monthly deductions no longer appeared on her bank statements, indicating that the agreement had indeed ended.

Last month, she received a bill from AOL, in the amount of over $550. AOL claims that she had neglected to pay her basic fees for three years and that they would submit her cumulative debts to a collection agency if she didn't pay up.

Now, in all the time between the day she terminated the account and now, my girlfriend never received a single bill from AOL. The account was in her name and she had left proper address forwards with the federal post office. Other mail that had been sent to her dorm managed to arrive at her place back home. But nothing from AOL. Nor were there any AOL-related sections on her bank statements for the past three years.

This issue remains unresolved, although she refuses to pay, and I don't blame her. Neither of us can think of a legitimate scenario that would explain this bill. It honestly appears as though AOL is trying to scrape extra money from current and former customers in the hopes that they're all too timid to fight back.

You know, does she have the date or anything that she called to request the cancellation? Because thats absolute bullshit. I would be RAGING on their asses, call them up, REMIND them of their recent media coverage, and threaten legal action.

Thats a bunch of SHIT and her credit is being fucking RUINED because AOL are a bunch of twat-raping motherfucks.

What I also find funny, is the 2nd time I called in and cancelled, they said they had no record of me cancelling my account in the first place, even though I gave them a "referrence" number they gave me. Way to followup your records, AOL.

www.aohell.com

Funny note about that site, all current AOL users are being completely denied access to that domain. Who'da thought?

All she has is bank records showing the last date upon which money was deducted from her account for AOL. That and the post office records documenting that she left a proper forwarding address.

She's already had a nice chat with a lawyer. I'm not really worried. Based upon the Vincent Ferrari story, AOL's getting a lot of bad exposure.

Incidentally, is anyone else bothered by that guy's name: "Vince Ferrari"?

"Vic Ferrari" was an alias of "Latka Gravas" on television's Taxi. Andy Kaufman, who played both, was notorious for pulling high profile hoaxes. This seems like a weird coincidence and I wonder if it's a very subtle clue that this whole thing is a prank against AOL.

Though it would be a coincidence, it's far too common to be seen only as a prank as everyone in here would attest to that.

America Online. I laugh.

When we purchased our very first computer, we signed up for the AOL Dial-Up service. The service was great (we didn't know any better at the time). Then we purchased another computer and discovered Broadband and DSL.

So we called America Online to cancel their service. We were put on hold twice and they never got back to us. The third time we called, we were pretty pissed. We eventually cancelled our account but just to be sure, told our bank to deny any attempted withdrawls to that company. Good times.

Someone want to file a class-action lawsuit against AOL or what. This is some devious shit AOL is pulling.

The System is a prebuilt Dell with a Network card Integrated into the Motherboard.

The Fact that it wouldn't even Try to pull up the "Create a Home or Office network" Wizard Left me a little dumbfounded. I then Tried to look at the workgroups that it belongs to but it said that the Account I was on "The only account that is used on that computer with full administrative rights" didn't have the Administrative rights to view them. SO I backdoored the system and went straight to the Admin account and the same thing Happened. So I have drawn two conclusions from this little Fiasco.

1. Either Time Warner is jerking us around because we get our Internet from them
2. or Dell is jerking us around!

Man, I remember when I used to have AOL while I was in the Army. It was the only service available where I was (cause the Army likes to build bases in remote areas, and broadband wasn't available in the area I was at), and I hated it because I often got booted off regularly, up to 5 times a night during "peak" periods (God I wanted to slap my comp everytime I heard "Goodbye!", esp. if for some reason it was said 2x in a row).

Needless to say, when I got out of the army and came back home, my brother hooked the house up with DSL (which had its own problems, but at least it was more reliable). I called AOL and told them to cancel my account, since I wouldn't need it anymore, but the lady I was talking to kept trying to essentially guilt me into staying with them (similiar to what others have said here), but I was insistent on cancelling, because I didn't want to pay for it anymore.

Instead of cancelling, what this lady said was basically I'd have AOL for another 2 months for free, and then after that "grace" period, if I truly wanted to cancel, I should give them another call and confirm it (and yes, AOL would've charged me if I didn't call to cancel. I think what they were doing was giving me 2 months free in an attempt to get me to stay on). Since I'd been on the phone with them for about 20 minutes already (well 5, I spent 15 minutes on hold, and no matter what I said, the lady simply would not cancel my account), I just said "fine".

Come the end of the 2 months, I call again and tell them to cancel my account, and luckily the guy I spoke to didn't give me any hard time, and simply cancelled it.

I think that AOL customer service reps must get training where when someone calls to cancel, they're told to do anything and everything possible to get people to reconsider, but as you can see, it doesn't work well, particularly with peeps who know a thing or two about the internet.

Now that everyone is going to high speed, AOL is clinging on like a bad girlfriend who won't take no for an answer.

PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME.

I just pretend I'm moving.

AOL tried everything to keep you in. I cancelled my account before the 30 days and they tried to keep me by giving me another extended trial and then I tried the whole "My computer is broke O_O" thing but they counter attacked by trying to sell me a 300 dollar computer. One thing led to another and I finally won by just saying "I'd rather just cancel my account" over and over again.
I think the best way to actually cancel it is by telling the truth. Your service sucks and I'm with a better provider, i want to cancel and I don't care what you say to me so don't waste my time.

I'm all for bringing down AOL. I was bothered by their ads and shitty service for years. Crash, hope things go well with the anti-AOL stuff.

It would seem that AOL reps are notorious for doing this. I had to go through something similar, except not quite as long. The lady made almost the same statements as this John dude. She didn't want to hear the fact that I'd gotten DSL from someone else. She wanted me to switch my DSL to AOL and keep the account. After her annoying antics, I asked to speak to her manager if she didn't close my account. That's when she relented.

I just love customer service "specialists". So far I haven't had any problems with my ISP, but sometimes I tend to get somewhat irritated with non-conclusive answers, for example how much I can download and they say...ummm... not as much as the business class internet service. WTF.

Furthermore, the Arnie soundboard would be hilarious here.

WHO IS YOUR FATHER AND WHAT DOES HE DO.

God, it's a wonder that anyone still does have AOL. I remember when I had to cancel a free 30 day trial thing with them. After being on the phone with the guy for about 20 minutes asking to cancle, he eventualy resorted to asking "What if I told you that you can make $5 a day if you keep AOL as your internet provider and surf the web with it? Are you going to tell me you don't want to make $5 a day?" To which I replied "No, no I don't. I'd rather lose that money and not be with AOL anymore"

I'm not living in america, so I dont know how AOL actually works. Do they monopolize over broadband service?

My country is in the worse condition than these AOL users. There is monopoly of state-owned enterprise telecommunication company here with very suck-ass customer service. They will just pingpong you everywhere if you start complaining the service. The price is also beyond nonsense. $200 for unlimited broadband.

I always avoid to deal with such companies. :(

There's plenty of providers like NetZero, local ones (I liked Harbornet), Comcast... Lot of phone companies offer net service. American Online just happens to be one of the major ones that does a lot of advertising and stuff to seem like a big deal... I dont think I'd call it a monopoly, just 'loud and annoying'.

My parents had AOL for all of 2 weeks before they decided it wasn't right for them. I think they had to deal with techs from India or something but they got it canceled and went back to MSN before they got cable last year.

We've had something similar happen during one of our free trials a while back. When we called to cancel the account because the trial was coming to an end, the guy on the other end kept questioning us. Eventually, he offered us an extra three months, I think it was, for free. Well, seeing as how three months of free internet sounded pretty nice, we agreed to stay. As the guy had promised, we got our three extra months free. Afterwards, we went to cancel the account, but we were offered MORE free months again so we could "reconsider" our decision.

In the end, I think we had a little over a year of free internet through AOL's persistence. :p

There was even an occasion when we had gotten a virus, and the representative was ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that there was NO WAY that we could have gotten one using AOL because of it's anti-virus protection add-ons. I don't even remember how that topic came up, but it did.

Still, it'd be nice if they actually cancelled an account when asked to do so.

I saw something like that on TV as well. :( Honestly--the lady's dead.

I heard the Customer Service Representative chuckling in the background of the recording. It's ridiculous none-the-less, but I don't believe that he was taking this too seriously. He should be fired. I mean, come on.

Hell. All I needed to do was just not pay my bill to get AOL off my back years ago. ^_^

Like Koneko said, AOL doesn't have a monopoly over internet providing, but it's probably one of the biggest ones and probably most well known cause of all the stupid commercials they run. I still remember when they acted like that AOL icon was the six million dollar man, "We can make him faster, we have the technology". It was a clever ad I suppose, but it got annoying after seeing it about the 20th time on tv.

I wonder how many peeps would lose interest in AOL after this debacle, which CNN also covered. That is, assuming AOL isn't the only service available in their area (and if it is, I feel sorry for them).

I saw that on tv too. Good thing that guy got fired. I still get those aol disc. I like to throw them around

I used to get them just for their tin cases a long time ago.

Wow, AOL sucks hard. I think my dad had a pretty tough time trying to deal with them too. It took 3 months for them to cancel our service. Those bitches.

oh yeah i remember the days when they used floppy disks. I'd use them as blanks, of course.

My brother and I collected their CD's and used them as drink coasters. I have to admit though, that they're useless for that now that my brother has upgraded to using Nero Express installation CD's as coasters.

I also used a free trial about 4 years ago. When I went to cancel it they harassed me for a little over 5 minutes until I just said "I DONT FUCKING WANT IT ANYMORE. CANCEL THE THING NOW."
It got through to him but he wasn't too happy. O well.

In this house, we never cancelled our AOL service. In fact, we still have the e-mail accounts and use AIM (through GAIM, though). By doing this, we've learned that AOL only charges for the use of its browser. We know this because after we stopped using the browser, we stopped being billed for AOL. So, really, no one needs to cancel AOL services. They just need to ignore them.

Heh. This reminds me of this site:
http://nomoreaolcds.com/
Seriously, who uses them? For their intended purpose, I mean. In my town, there's one road where you can see aol cds scattered all along the side of the road in the brush.

AOL needs to go away, plain and simple. Unfortunately there's the internet illiterate (read: elderly) who think they're actually getting a good deal with these scammers. There needs to be a full-on publicly-announced boycott of AOL.

Vincent Ferrari on NBC news:

http://www.thatvideosite.com/view/2751.html

Over here, AOL hasn't been that redicilious except for two or so hichups that were the result of ether matinence or my computer illiterate father who thinks changing passwords from work is a smart idea.

Then again, maybe AOL UK is just more sencible than it's American equivilant, I could buy that excuse.

Ugh, I feel all your pain. My parents used AOL for something like 10 years (even going through two accounts because I was a total fuckwad in my younger years and violated the TOS too many times), and every time I told them "Dude, AOL sucks ass. We need a different service," they'd say, "Oh, it's fine."

"No, it's not. It's a terrible browser with shitty speeds and gigantic bloat, and on top of that it's more expensive than other alternatives."
"Those other alternatives don't have multiple e-mail accounts."
"A) Lots of alternatives do, and b) if they don't, we can set up our own over the web."
"Parental controls."
"OTHER SERVICES OFFER THE SAME THING AS AOL FOR LESS. HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS."
"Well, we'll just stick with it anyway 'cause we don't wanna go through the hassle."

Repeat this conversation about 10 times through a period of 2 years or so.

Finally, when we moved to Seattle, we cancelled the account (even though we didn't need to use it any more because we had gotten Time Warner cable, and didn't need AOL's browser to use the internet)... and we went through the EXACT SAME THING that everybody else has. My dad spent a good 4-5 minutes telling the rep, "NO. I DO NOT WANT FREE MONTHS. I DO NOT USE AOL ANY MORE AND WOULD LIKE TO CANCEL NOW," before it got through his head. When he hung up, he took one look at us, and said, "God DAMN, that guy was annoying."

Damn, I heared this story before, and I bet over 50 million people have had trouble cancelling.

Anyway, after all this, I almost WISH I had AOL, just to cancel, and go through the experience myself. Boy, I would rain terror on any employees ass over the phone if they did not do as I said. I'd show them to respect my authoritah. :ninja:

But I have one of the best ISPs ever, so I won't need to. Speed, Service and Communication is lets say 99% perfect.

We still have AOL, but it's really only so I can access all the stuff on my FTPs and my mom can get to her e-mail. I don't actually "use" it anymore but every account I have on the internet goes to the AOL account and other stuff like school documents, etc. I'm fixing to move all my stuff to my own Verizon account when I get all my FTP stuff organized and figure out just how many things I need to switch e-mails for.

I was one of the very lucky few that never had problems with AOL's service, too, which is probably why I don't hate it like I should. My friends would always get booted offline while nothing ever happened to me. One of my friends hated AOL so much, but she was constantly calling them to cancel just so she could get several months of AOL free.

The only good that came out of AOL was the close friends I made, but other than that, I dread the day when we attempt to cancel our account.

Wow. I had the same experience when I tried to cancel my free trial with AOL.

I only used it because my other provider wasn't connecting and their customer service sucked. I used AOL to cancel my other provider.

So, I got cable, then went to AOL to cancel. The lady on the phone was nice, but I had to keep insisting to cancel the account. Finally, after she kept asking me why, I finally gave her the real answer:

"Because I only used AOL to cancel my other provider, and AOL has connection problems. I like to stay on the internet for more than 5 minutes, and I don't like IE. So, in short...I DON'T LIKE AOL."

My account was canceled. :)

AOL doesn't work with Mozilla or Opera or anything else? Just AOL and IE?

IE is incorporated with AOL. In order to use another browser, you connect with AOL, minimize it, then open the new browser. Unless they've changed that.

Thank god I didn't use AOL back in the days. MSN was bad then, now I got craptastic(not as bad) Alltel(when it even sprinkles a little bit, my connection goes flat on me).

I hate American Online, I hate everything about it. I have never witness such bullshit customer service. Even AOL 9.0 Security Edition is nothing but pure crap down to the core. My dad has been using that to protect his computer since 2004. Since then his computer has been Hi-Jacked 3 times. Great security defenses you got there AOL.

I don't know how AOL makes all these claims likes the best thing in the world.

Yeah. It would be nice to see advertising regulated just a little more. AOL claim all kind of things that are, in some cases, factually untrue. I'm referring to AOL UK here, but I dare say that the American parent company are not so different.

You know AOL is bad when the following happens:

Time Warner spends a bunch of money to buy them out. They're proud, declaring themselves "AOL Time Warner". Then suddenly, AOL is removed from the name.

Poor Bugs Bunny is ashamed to admit he's associated with AOL anymore. ^^;;

In defense of the sales representative ( I know people who have worked as Sales Rep for AOL) AOL MAKES them do it, or they fire them. And when someone complains about a sales rep. doing what AOL forces the reps to do, they also get fired. They all have to basically beg you to keep your service. I wouldn't be mad at the sales rep. - just at AOL.

Yeah, the life of a sales rep is harsh. However, stories like the one where the woman tried to cancel her dead mother's account (assuming that is a true story and I wouldnt be surprised if it is) and things like that, that's where the line is drawn between keeping a sale and being cruel.

Believe me--there's a difference between asking why an account is being cancelled and ignoring the cancellation request itself.

Well, yeah, of course in cases like that it wouldn't be appropriate. That's common sense. I just wanted to point out that it's not ALWAYS just the sales rep. being dicks, they're forced to rebuttle and rebuttle - especially with AOL. Although some customers like to be 'smart' also and just say that the account holder is dead or in siberia. People have done it to me ( I haven't worked specifically for AOL though).

I experienced something similar when I tried to cancel my account a few years ago. He offered me free service for three months as soon as I mentioned canceling. Later, he asked for proof that I actually lived in California, but at that point I simply told him to cancel my account.

There's at least 40% of users who'll never leave AOL
http://www.watleyreview.com/2004/111604-3.html
Old news but still hilarious.