Since my VISA account was hit was with unauthorized charges for AOL Credit Alert and AOL Netmarket last October, I have been urging that others who have been targetted by AOL or by AOL affiliates (Credit Alert, AutoVantage, Shop Direct, Netmarket and Travel Advantage) take a few minutes to complete an FTC complaint form. I cannot express the intensity of my outrage at their audacity in helping themselves to funds from members' checking and credit card accounts... Or my indignation at how many have been victimized.
Complaints against AOL and its affiliates cover a wide range of problems... Difficulty contacting these companies when there is a problem, the sending of and billing for unordered merchandise or services, insistence that an order cannot be cancelled, rebate refusals, refusal to issue refunds for damaged merchandise or merchandise not delivered.
While all of these acts should be reported, what is most alarming is the large number of complaints regarding the ability of these companies to obtain credit and checking account information without the AOL members knowledge or permission.
In the end I got all but $26 of my money back, but never in all of my communications with AOL was I given a satisfactory explanation of how AOL Credit Alert and AOL Netmarket obtained access to my VISA account number. I had never used that account online for any purpose except to pay my monthly AOL bill.
The fact that these abuses contine in the face of so many complaints (I have sent out over two hundred fifty copies of this letter so far) indicates that AOL is not about to change its tactics because a few disgruntled members complain to a bored tech at an 800 number... But action by the FTC will get their attention. So do it now! It will take five minutes to access and fill out the FTC complaint form. Go to the site below.
Priscilla
Evergreen, Colorado
U.S.A. Www.aol.com
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