AOL sucks.
I cannot believe the lengths to which AOL will go to keep you on their service. And, apparently, I fell prey to one of their tricks.
August 29, I called AOL to cancel the service well within the 45 day free trial I was using when we moved and waited for our DSL to be set up. I told the representative on the phone I wanted to cancel. He said that I would be cancelled and would still have two months to use the service. I said, “whatever”, thinking “as if”. I didn’t touch the service again.
Tonight, I check my bank statement and I see a $23.90 charge from AOL. Something was not right.
Calling AOL, I went first to billing, where I was then directed to cancellations. Thus began the pissing off of Leia.
I explained to the girl on the phone that I had cancelled my service in August and I wanted to be refunded my $23.90. In checking my records, apparently the friendly customer service representative in August had signed me up for two months free, after which I would be billed. What what what?! I explained to her that, NO, I had cancelled it then and wanted my $23.90 back. The exchange then went something like this:
AOL: I’m sorry, I cannot do that.
Me: I would like to speak to your supervisor.
AOL: He is not here.
Me: Then I would like to talk to someone else.
AOL: There is no one else that can help you.
Me: Then how can I be refunded my $23.90?
AOL: We cannot do that.
Me: This account was cancelled. I have not used this account. I want my money refunded and I do not want to be charged again.
AOL: Do you have a cancellation number?
Me: No, I cancelled this account months ago.
AOL: Well, when you cancel an account, you are given a number and a letter is then mailed to your house. Did you receive this letter?
Me: No. I would like my $23.90 refunded.
AOL: Would you like a month of service free?
Me: No, I want my $23.90 refunded.
AOL: How about two months?
Me: No, I want my $23.90 refunded.
AOL: All I can do is cancel your account or give you some free months.
Me: Then I want to cancel.
AOL: OK, what if we offered you two months free?
Me: No.
AOL: Was something wrong with the AOL service?
Me: I have another ISP.
AOL: You can use AOL while with another ISP for only $9.95/month. That way you are not paying the $23.90.
Me: No. I do not want that.
AOL: What if we gave you one month free?
Me: NO.
AOL: Two months?
Me: NO. I WANT TO CANCEL.
I think I finally cancelled the account. And I called back and spoke to another person in billing that said he would email his supervisor to have him check out the situation and hopefully refund my money. Then again, he may have been just blowing smoke: “Oh, sure! I’m emailing my supervisor right now! I’m saying ‘she thought account was cancelled and has not used it since.’”
No matter, I’m going to get my $23.90 back. Even if I have to call 18 times.
GRRRR.
GOOD LUCK. AOL pulled the same crap with Dan when he cancelled. All he wanted to do was cancel and they REFUSED for like 30 minutes on the phone and kept throwing free months at him. And then they didn’t! So he called and he didn’t know his EXACT address from boot camp (it was over a year ago) and they were like “for security reasons we can’t let you cancel your account”. So he wanted to know how ELSE he could “prove” it was him so he could cancel and the guy was like “there is no other way and my supervisor isn’t here”. It was ridiculous.
Typical… “We screwed up, we can’t fix it, you can’t talk to anyone else, have a nice day.”
Nevertheless, thanks for sharing. Funny dialogue!
I was one of AOL’s first 5000 beta testers, back in 1987… when I finally cancelled my account somewhere around 1994, they told me “Okay, we’ll cancel your account, but we want to make it very easy for you to reactivate should you change your mind, so if you ever want to rejoin AOL, just start up your application as usual and log in, and we’ll automatically reactivate.
That’s pretty scary, and doesn’t seem like a deactivation at all, it just means they’ll stop charging you for a while. In my head a deactivation means making the account inactive, as in, lgging in won’t work and all. Ick.
This exact same bullshit happened to me. I ended up having to eat two months service that I never even asked for. AOL SUCKS!!
All I need to know about support I learned from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life:
MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning]
MAÎTRE D: And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
MR. CREOSOTE: Nah.
MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir, it’s only a tiny, little, thin one.
MR. CREOSOTE: No. Fuck off. I’m full.
MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir. Hmm?
MR. CREOSOTE: [groan]
MAÎTRE D: It’s only wafer thin.
MR. CREOSOTE: Look. I couldn’t eat another thing. I’m absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.
MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir, just– just one.
MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning] All right. Just one.
MAÎTRE D: Just the one, monsieur. Voilà.
You can dispute the charge with your credit card company. They’re usually on your side for this kind of thing.
Just be sure to do do all correspondence with them by snail-mail (not by phone), or you lose some legal rights.
Leia: Call your bank immediately and tell them that AOL is charging you for fees that you did not ask for. They will conduct an investigation into the unauthorized $23.90 fee and you may be able to get you your money back (unless AOL has some weird agreement that you clicked through). Also, place a hold on your account that is AOL specific. You can generally prevent a company from charging you for six months. This will prevent AOL from charging your account so that AOL cannot pull a fast one in the future.
Something similar happened with Earthlink and me when I cancelled with them. But no one charges me unauthorized charges and gets away with it. You can guess who won the fight, although it took a bit of foresight and tenacity.
All of these are great suggestions, but I think you should go for the slashing of tires and flaming bags of poo.
Ed is right – your ace in the hole is a credit dispute investigation gives you your money back immediately and almost always rules in your favour. Probably, you won’t be able to just call, but also you’ll have to put it in writing and fax it to your bank’s dispute department. Bit of a hassle, but I have always received credit back for any disputes.
AOL is so wrong. All that “free” BS is nothing but a credit card number collection database. Same thing happened here – waiting for DSL install a few years ago, figured I’s use the “free” AOL for about a week in the meantime. Fine print somewhere said my free two months or whatever would roll over and a few months later I get a charge for, like, 3 months additional service (during which time I never used even a minute of time with them.) Turns out this “Free Trial” required you to call and specifically cancel your account, or they just kept charging you, even if you didn’t use it. AOL gave me the same BS. I send a dispute letter to my bank and they gave me back the money right away. I also wrote letters to the Texas AG, BBB, and AOL, demanding my name and number be removed from their database – my right under a Federal statute at the time.
I swear, I think these kind of rip-offs are one way AOL makes so much money. And then they pay their call center people $6 an hour. You have to love America.
Same thing happened to me and they just kept charging and charging me. I finaly sprung the 10 bucks for the stop pay and that took care of that little problem.