Aol
Improper billing ripoff

I activated an aol account at my office at work and was told that I had 1000 hours free to use within a 45 day period. Ofcourse, after that 45 day period if I wished to continue with AOL a fee of $239. XX would either be billed to a credit card or drafted from my account.

Because my boss does not use a credit card for business purposes he wanted to send a check immediately (before my trial period was even up) to AOL, but AOL has a policy where the amount can only be drafted from the checking account (I do not understand why we could not just mail a check since they weren't going to draft the account for 45 days anyways, and they would receive the check before that time period was up).

Anyhow, I requested that the $29.80 monthly fee be drafted from the account as a lump sum (All 12 months in full after my trial period... Pre-paid to them in other words) which came to the $239. XX fee I mentioned above.

The customer service representative said that would be fine and told me the date when the $239. XX would be drafted from my account which was 45 days from that day since I was on a trial. I then deducted the $239.00 from the company checking account at that time as I didn't want to forget to do it in 45 days.

So 2 months pass buy and I have a problem with reconciling some bank statements and really start looking through them. AOL has drafted $29.80 from my account (I was expecting $239. XX to be drafted as my boss specifically wanted it all in one lump sum). I call AOL and ask that my account be looked over to be sure proper billing is listed and ofcourse... It wasn't.

I then had to go online and change checking account information so that I could make proper changes and was told I would get 2 more months free (as I noticed mentioned in other posts about AOL). And that the $239.00 would not be deducted until after my 2 extra free months.

What I can't figure out is how do they call it 2 free months when they've already taken $29.80 from my account one (not being refunded to me) and taking the full $239. XX out later? Looks to me like I'm paying the $239. XX for my one year of service and they've already got a mistaken $29.80 out for another month on top of it.

I know it's not alot of money, but it's a matter of responsibility when you hold someone else's bank account information in your hand. Makes you wonder what these people are thinking. I'm anxious to see this month's bank statement.

Company: Aol
Country: USA
State: Nationwide

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