To AOL: "No means no"

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by eriol

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.

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).

How ya doing, buddy?