I cancelled AOL back in December, beginning of January. Well needless to say they have hit my old checking account 8 times! I called to see why they were still hitting my account and they said that they do not show evidence of my call to cancel the account and they show activity up until April. I guess my fiance's son was using AOL instead of Earthlink! You would think that after a couple of trys they would stop attempting to collect money from my account. I remember talking to the rep when I signed up for AOL, telling me that If I cancelled I'd better put a stop payment on my AOL draft because it could take months to get them to stop! Remember this yesterday. How helpful! Has anyone else had a problem with them? If so, what did you do to get them off of your back. Any help would be much appreciated. Sirrowan
1 - Call your bank and tell them NO MORE. 2 - AOL BILLING - Send them an EMAIL, and click while talking to a REP at AOL. You will get the email transcript which you can print. They must have this in writing or they will AGAIN say they see no record of your request. They are known for making it VERY INCONVENIENT to disconnect. BUT, you are the customer. arff - dogman
I replied to an earlier post about AOL, about a month ago. anywho, you have to talk to CSR manager, not the CSR. Say something like you were thinking about using their services again, but now you are thinking about suing. Get hostile if you have to. You will have to be patient when you call, because they transfer you a lot. I have found the emailing the billing dept. is useless and slower. Good Luck! Humblemarc
This apparently is a big problem. There was a consumer report on it on the news about two nights ago. Because nothing seems to work, they said to do it by phone, by email (save a copy), and by certified mail, return receipt. At least you will have some proof. Wait until you try to get AOL off your computer. After you cancel, they will send you a letter saying that if you want to use the service, you don't need to sign up again. Just go to the site and click on, and they will start billing you again. This is a big problem if there are kids around, because the pop up boxes keep popping up any time you try to get online. No matter how many times I delete it from my computer, it keeps coming back.. I just got a new computer and have never used AOL on it. But, the pop ups still keep coming up - "Do you want to sign on with AOL now?" Best advice is to never sign up with them in the first place. Sorry about the rant. I am just fed up with them. I have deleted them four times this week alone, and yesterday got a popup asking me if I wanted to update to the new version.
We cancelled AOl about two years ago and went with MSN. How can we find out if we have been getting charged all this time? I still see an AOL symbol on my computer every once in a while . Where do we check for something like that? Does it get listed on your phone bill?
You probably gave them a credit card to bill it to automatically when you signed up. It will appear there if you still have the card. Or, you may have authorized automatic withdrawal from your checking account.
I received a letter from my old bank. I thought that my account was closed out but if you still have activity, they do not close the account. Needless to say, AOL has been hitting my old account on the following dates: 27.00 05/23/02 27.00 05/16/02 27.00 05/07/02 27.00 04/26/02 27.00 04/02/02 27.00 03/26/02 27.00 03/05/02 27.00 02/26/02 28.90 02/05/02 27.00 01/28/02 As you can see, they got me in February. I called AOL and the CSR was snotty and treated me as if I was trying to get out of paying for my service. They say they contacted me back in March, but the mail was returned. This was because I had moved! I guess my point is that you should check whatever method of payment you were using to be certain they were not charging you. They say that I owe them $115.00 for services. Yeah right. So for cancelling AOL I have to pay $216 in NSF Fees and $115 for services after cancellation. That's a total of $331.00 to cancel AOL. Do not get AOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got AOL for 12 months free with my new computer a few months ago and canceled the free service about 2 weeks ago.. AOL is horrible... Web surfing seems akward and trough out the duration of the free trail I kept getting these telemarketing calls from AOl asking how do I like my service and would I be willing to purchase whatever crap they were selling at the time. I cancelled because the constant phone calls were annoying... I made sure to get a confirmation number when canceling.. did you get one??
Thanks, But I think that they are going to try to send my account to collections! Can you believe this? Sirrowan
I haven't cancelled yet but I'd like to. My son doesn't want me to because he likes the instant messaging and of course there is the hassle of changing email addresses, etc. I hate their pop-up ads and I keep getting the dsl ad and it's not even available in my area. Same with wireless ads, service is never available in my area. Anyway, I have my credit card automatically billed and I don't like that policy. What if you are near your limit on your card and you forget this is billed automatically? Over the limit! What if an error occurs and they bill your card 2398.00 instead of 23.98? Besides, I like seeing a bill and the amount before I sign anything. I'm thinking of changing the way I am billed. I wonder how long that would take to effect?
sirrowan - sorry, in my zeal to post I forgot to offer my sympathies for your situation. What a pain in the butt that is. As you say, you've got to deal with the overdraft charges to. Damn!
AOL is horrible. I never heard from them again after I cancelled my service 2 years ago...but I had to jump through hoops to get them to do so. And it is almost impossible to delete the program off your computer! Hopefully anyone thinking of getting AOL will read these posts and take our advice...
Re: AOL and cancellation anyone els The problem with AOL is that their cancellation (i.e., retention) reps actually get a paid bonus if they keep you. For that reason, AOL has had some difficulty keeping their $9/hour phone reps honest. It's pretty lame that a mega-billion dollar company can't or won't monitor these reps more closely. In any event, here's Doc's advice for cancelling AOL. 1) When online, go to keyword "CANCEL" and fill out the form online. This will indeed cancel your account. 2) Follow up the next day. Go to keyword "CANCEL" again (if you're still able to sign on -- if you're not, that's a good sign), and do it again. Redundancy is a good thing in this case. Then follow up with a phone call. Tell the rep that you have cancelled online already and wanted to confirm the cancellation. 4) The third day, try to sign on, and if you sign on, go to keyword "CANCEL" again. Then follow up with a phone call again. 5) Wait a week. Do Step 4 again. Call your credit card company and block further charges from America Online. That same day, try to sign on, and if you sign on, do keyword "CANCEL again. This five-step process is absolutely foolproof. The usual one-step process (calling the cancellation/retention rep and hoping he or she does the right then, then forgetting about it until you notice six months of charges) does not work. Finally, if you are already a victim, take breeze's advice and escalate like crazy. Doc
You can still use the AOL instant messanging, even if you don't have aol. You just have to download it! I hated AOL, I hated all the spam I got. I switched over to compuserve, and didn't get any spam. Then, we finally got cable. I like it so much better!!
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER! NEVER EVER EVER INSTALL AOL ON YOUR COMPUTER! IT'S LIKE LUKEMIA FOR YOUR MACHINE! YOU WILL NEED TO STRIP IT BARE TO GET RID OF IT! (screaming intentional) ```1000 free hours!...thereafter, eternal servitude in the bowels of the netherworld....Muahahahahaha```
Re: AOL and cancellation anyone els "1) When online, go to keyword "CANCEL" and fill out the form online. This will indeed cancel your account" There is no "online form" to cancel AOL. It must be done by phone, fax, or mail.
Re: AOL and cancellation anyone els Argh, Pinto, well they've apparently made it more difficult than it used to be. Terrible. Doc
Re: AOL and cancellation anyone els How's this one for you... My dad lives in Florida, used AOL because of the free trial (Of course he calls me AFTER he does this). So he signs up with the automatic billing on his Amex card. I go to visit and say "what is this crap, why are you using AOL. Let's get a local provider for you." He calls to cancel, they say they need his Amex number so they can cancel. He gives it to them and they say, that's not the card that we have on file. He says yes, that card was a gold amex, but I've switched to the platinum one, so they gave me a new number. The rep says we can't cancel without the old number that he had signed up with, because IT'S ENCRYPTED IN YOUR ACCOUNT. Here's the kicker: They had been billing his NEW card/new number for months. I get on the phone and read the riot act to the lady. Once I told her what I did for a living (Internet/Telecom) she tried every back/side step possible. At the end, she was about it tears. I couldn't believe that line of crap they were trying to get over on my dad. The sad thing is that my dad is not that computer savvy, so he probably would have bought it. --- I won't even go into my brother's "I had AOL, but now I have a cable modem" story... Pitiful!! As always...
