In April of I received a disk in the mail for 30 day "FREE" trial of AOL. I signed up, and at that time you could give them your credit card # or checking account number. I used checking.
Before my 30 days was up I decided to sign up with an other service that is less expensive than AOL, (and haven't had any problems with them I might add). About a month later I get my bank statment and it shows that AOL took $12 from my checking account. I called AOL and told the customer service person what happend. He said my AOL account was still open, I told him to close it again. This happend over and over for 7 months!
I would email AOL customer support and all they would do reply by giving me the 1-800 number. I tryed to talk to a manager, but would only get the run around. The customer service people would verify that I wasn't using any time on this account and I would state that is because the account is supposed to be closed, and this why would I try to use it and complain about paying for an account if I'm using it!"DUH"! AOL was only willing to refund 2 months out of 7.
I talked to my bank, they suck too, but that's a differant story. They were not really willing to help. (Compass bank).
I reported AOL to the FCC, Arizona Attorney General, and the BBB. The FCC and the AZ ATT GEN, said they were looking into it, and that's all I heared from them. The BBB checked into it and got a responds back from some idiot in Florida who explained that I should have followed the correct way of closing my account, that they would refund one more month and that they considered the matter closed.
I wrote a responds, to this guy, and pointed out the fact that in my original report to the BBB that I did follow the prosedure to close the account to the letter. He had received a copy with the BBB's report and I sent him another copy hilighting this section of the letter.
I now have been active in trying to prevent people from getting AOL from those disks at many stores. I have contacted several stores about the ramped theft and unethical practices of AOL. I talked an elderly couple at a Compusa, and told them about the problem I and others have had and suggested a few other reputable online prviders.
AOL took my money without my permission, that's steeling! This was not just a misunderstanding nor is it an isolated incident as you can see from the other reports on this website. This company doesn't care about it customer service, AOL only cares about making money any way it can, even if they screw people on the way. Most people just take this crap and don't do anything about it, and that's a comine practice with many large corporations today. Even if a company like AOL loses a lawsuit they don't really lose any profit.
Frankly I knew AOL had legal problems several years ago but I thought that was behind them and can't believe that our government is not doing any thing about it. Put the word out every little bit helps and word of mouth can hurt or help a business more than you may realize.
0 comments