Leave AOL? Over Its Dead Body!

This is all much ado about nothing! You need a credit card or debit card to subscribe to AOL. All you need to do to cancel is call your bank and tell them to stop honoring charges or debits from AOL. You will be cancelled immediately at the next billing cycle. And if not, who cares? Its not costing you anything.

All of these people who spend seemingly hours on the telephone arguing with and being supposedly brow beaten by AOL must have far too much time on their hands. Get a life!

I know better than to have AOL as my ISP, but in a case of this, I would just hand this to my lawyer. We all know AOL is going to cover their butt legally with this and deny that "this is abnormal and would never happen with a customer service agent... ever."

Paying a lawyer for something like this is rather like using a cruise missle to weed your lawn. First of all, it's only twenty-something dollars a month; how much is that lawyer going to cost.
The far easier solution is as Mark suggested, just shut the "payment door"; AOL will handle the rest. On the other hand, Mark, it's a bit impolite to assume that people who have no knowledge of such a simple solution have no life.

At any rate: back to the title of this article "Leave AOL? Over It's Dead Body!"
All right...let's kill it then. It has long ago outlived its usefulness.

Canceling AOL merely through your credit card company is not an option. The process for a dispute requires you to contact the merchant (in this case, AOL) first and then tell your credit card company the result of your contact with the merchant. I know AOL is in big trouble and the best way to cancel the account is flatly refuse any offers by saying "I just want to cancel the damned account!"

The credit card companies are in on the scam. I asked Capital One to cancel several accounts that were illegally charging me ongoing monthly fees. They refused. Then I asked to cancel the card. It took six months of endless, harrassing hassles. The various companies, including credit card companies, cooperate with one another. It's for the sake, I'm sure, of padding each others "profit margins".

A-n-OL Rentention Manual

I would just feel sorry for anyone who got involved with AOL in their lifetime in the firstplace.
Can you believe they actually try to get you to pay them for their "product" as well as your broadband provider (assuming broadband). Paying twice for the same internet! They just need to go away...like a bad case of hemeroids.

i used aol back when it was pretty much Aol, Compuserve or Local BBS's. Of course, I only ever used the free trials and never gave them my real banking account info or routing number. Back in the day, AOL was actually pretty useful, but as has been mentioned already, it's long outlived that status.

Does AOL not have an e-mail option for support. E-Mail them to cancel the account and if they don't cancel it you'll cancel the billing method. When they reply, you have your evidence of talking with them and you can contact your payment company. I've never had a problem cancelling a card I was using, but I've not cancelled all that many CC's...

A bill for AOL showed up one day on my brothers Sears card. He doesnt even own a computer! Anyway, calling AOL was an excercise in comedy and Sears said he needed to talk to AOL. I don't know the particulars except that it took months to resolve. And to Mark S: Some of us young people only have 1 credit card (perhaps only an secured one) so cancelling is not an option. Also, cancelling wouldn't change the fact that the a charge was already on the account. I'm not going to pay it of just to close my account.

There is an another option short of canceling your credit card if you are having trouble canceling a monthly service. Simply call your credit card company and teill them you lost your card. They will have a replayment to you in a couple of days, at most, with new accounts numbers.

Die Aol die!!!!!! Do people still subscribe to this filth?

Use the best browser going today - and forget AOL and the rest. Avant Browser - I have NEVER had a problem, from install on.

Yo, Mark (and johnny), I think Paul712 found your solution; just call the bank and tell them you lost the card, cut that bad boy up and wait a couple days for the new one. I think this would be less a hassle than going through a protracted dispute resolution process, such process likely designed to squeeze several more months' fees out of you in the meantime.
Listen, AOL took over $135 (actually it was $240, but I managed to get $105 back) in unauthorized charges from me, AFTER I cancelled, they once sent me a check in lieu of a free month of service, and the check bounced (not kidding) and they set me up for some kind of annual appointment book thing that they charged me $25 plus shipping for. The last one I managed to get resolved, but I considered it not worth it after several months trying to get the other money. I'm for anything, even something a little drastic, to get their claws out of my back!

The easiest way to cancel AOL is to send or fax a letter. In AOL's help is the snail mail address and fax number along with requirements needed to cancel the account. Those requirements can be easily fullfilled by doing a screen print of AOL's billing screen.

By doing it this way you have it in writing and if they fail to do honor your request you can go to the Better Business Bureau, contact your state Attorney General or challenge the charge with credit card company.

Hi. I am going through this with my father's account. He died in March. I used his account at his house, to access the Internet. We just got it set up with wireless (we are moving into the house). I sent a death certificate and a letter signed by my mom & I. I am waiting to see if they shut it down. I have not tried to access the account since I gave them the date that I wanted it shut down.

The following is a copy of a letter I recently sent to AOL:
Dear Sir or Madam:

We?ve received your notice of intent to collect a debt. My first reaction was to chuckle. Obviously another one of those corporate mistakes, blah, blah, blah.
Then I showed it to my wife and she immediately said, ?Oh, dear, send them a check. I don?t want any trouble.?
?But sweetheart,? I said, ?We don?t owe them any money.? And I showed her a copy of our cancelled check.?
?Well,? she said, ?Let?s just pay it anyway, it isn?t that much.?
The discussion continued, and this letter is a result of that discussion, because I heard echoes of it all over America. And I saw hundreds, perhaps thousands, of checks being mailed, though no debt existed.
And I saw your firm and AOL figuring that out of a vast mailing you could figure a certain percentage of ex-AOL subscribers would not ?want any trouble.? This, especially from retirees, like my wife and I.
How clever, I thought. How so ? well ? so ENRONish. But so much simpler.
This conclusion, of course, is the more sinister reading. Less sinister is my first reaction, that it is simply a corporate mistake. However, I seldom trust my first reaction.
And this is to say that this letter, which denies any such debt exists, and has attached a copy of your initial letter and a copy of my bank document showing the canceled check to AOL, is a part of a package I am forwarding to the following agencies:
Delaware Department of Justice, Consumer Protection Division
California Dept. of Consumer Affairs
Securities & Exchange Commission Complaint Center
Consumer Response Center, Federal Trade Commission

I am doing this on the chance that one, or more, of these agencies has already received some consumer input regarding this AOL-NCO practice.

All agencies have acknowledged receipt and at least one has already contacted AOL-NCO. NCO are the initials of the collection agency doing business with AOL.

It's not quite true that instructing your bank not to honor charges from a particular vendor will work. When I tried this, my bank advised that if you have authorized a vendor to charge your account, then it is up to you to get the vendor to stop doing it. Apparently the vendor does not even need to prove to the bank that you authorized the charge; at least my bank would not produce such evidence. I agree that it is kind of shocking that the bank no longer thinks of itself as your banker, distributing money only as you direct; but it appears that bankers now think of themselves as mere intermediaries.

this might work to cancel your aol account. violate their terms of service. just go into some chat rooms, public ones that are monitored, and start telling people that you are going to kill them. they will suspend your account or cancel not sure which.

I had aol when I didn't know better. They would not cancell my account. I just called my bank and cancelled the card. Since I work on computers I put down aol to everyone. Also I've posted everywhere that Aol is for people that don't have a clue. Aol has lost 20 million people since 2000, wheres the customer service? SERVICE IN INDIA SUCKS!

Service in india sucks?????????????

Tell that to dell.

I obviously can't speak for every credit card company or every bank, but I can tell you when a well known CD/DVD club refused to cancel my account and continued to send me and charge my debit card for monthly selections, one call to my bank (Washington Mutual) ended the problem. Second, I never suggested that anyone should cancel their credit card. Third, I did not suggest that people of inexperience or little knowledge had no life, only that people who will spend upwards of an hour arguing with and being abused by a customer service rep have no life. Based on how so many people misquoted or misrepresented my words in this simple forum I must begin to question who is at fault in these communications with AOL: the customer or AOL.

Dell sucks too!

"Service in india sucks?????????????

Tell that to dell."
_____________________________________________

I did.

To the person that said tell your bank your card is lost! They will give you a new card but it's the same account number!

You know, its not really the companies falt that their tech support is in India. Indian tech support guys are ALOT more knowledeable than American tech support guys, by large margins. Also, due to call volume, there is no way to set up call centers in only, say, the US. India is the only place offering enough people to answer all the calls.

Also, Dell has a call center in Ireland too I believe, go them!

Tell the credit card company your card was stolen.Then they'll be liable for the charges and they'll send you a new card and account number.It worked just fine for me.

All this dicussion on canceling your card being the solution, I work in the cancellation center for an ISP. Here is what happens: cancel your card month one still charged, month two still charged, month three charged again and if not paid account cancelled with oustanding balance of 3 months. Next turned over to collections dept, if not collected eventually turned over to independant collectors. Botttom line dont cancel with isp and simply cancelling cc is a fast way to ruin your credit.

I'm so bored with this AOL bashing.. this blog has been live for over 4 days.. I'm SURE there is something more interesting than AOL to bash or report by now..

I like this web site.. I also don't like AOL.. but isn't it time to get over the fact that AOL sucks already?

I think I read at some other tech blog some NEWS about Microsoft's new iPod killer.

From a legal point of view never cancell payment while under contract. As a legal barrister you dont have a leg to stand on and there are other issues.

You need to inform then via a call and state you wish to cancell your contact giving the legal amount of days notice detailed in the contract (Shame on you if you have not read it). If you don not fulfil your payment, you will not be able to change ISP's due to AOL not realising your line until your end of contact payment is made and will likely include a extra penalty for breaching your end of the contract.

IF you stich to your guns and repeat your wishes to terminate, it will not take more than a month to terminate.

Please, if you would work four years for a computer engineering degree and then go to tech support, you have your own problems. If most tech support was in the US, it would be just as bad, I've had enough US tech support guys from verizon, and many other companies, whose tech support was just as scripted and just as bad. At best you have a guy paying his way through college that may be able to help you out.

AOL, such a immoral company should have been banned. AOL should be closed! AOL is RUBBISH!

AOL uses a call center in Bangalore while Sony uses one in Hyderabad. Both places are abysmal. I should have studied Wallah English in school. But, nothing is worse than Sony's e-mail support. They not only don't write English, they've never used a computer. Why doesn't Sony-Japan use Japanese-speaking Chinese or Koreans but only native Japanese. Could it be the Japanese wouldn't tolerate it? It seems that Dell is trying to re-capture the customers it has lost by building better machines. Will they return their customer service to the U.S.?

I tried the "don't honor charges from AOL" bit with my credit card company.

AOL turned around and sent a paper billing statement telling me that I owe them their monthly fee.

I had to call and cancel.

I use dial up today. I had a hard time cancelling AOL just on the trial basis years ago, also PeoplePC and Netscape, there are all bad. I use the direct dial-up, slo-mo, with Firefox. Internet is sweet again!!

I had aol it was easy to cancels so where are all yall people say its hard i said i would like to cancel they asked why and they canceled it , all companies try to get you to stay with not just aol comcast which is worst than aol i rather deal with aol any day over comcast and over the years time warner fucked up aol even more they should have merged time warner cable and internet with aol also aol brought time warner why isnt aol running it aol should have took more control when it could have done some good

I had a problem with aol ever since I was supposed to have 6 months free with my new computer. They wanted billing info for a free account I said why, they did not have a good answer. I also had AT&T on a three way call to have my phone as billing (which is listed in billing options they said account no good while on phone with phone co. ) so I said no problem and went with yahoo DSL through AT&T I am a happy camper AOL SUCKS FOR SURE !!!!

AOL will take any money they can get ( well almost LOL) I will not ever think of using their service their reps are rude and stupid could have hade my business and screwed up bad by telling a phone co rep my account was not active HAH HAH AOL I hope you are learning your lesson AOL is dying on the line oh! vine LOL keep blogging against AOL they might get smarter in the process . !!!!!!!!

What scared me the most about AOL was that when I DID manage to escape them, and then cleaned my registry, there were about 250 AOL entries on my registry. They literally were trying to take over my computer. Those guys are a bunch of spooks.

To NeverUsedAol: The credit card company won't simply issuse a new card with the same account numbers. The whole point of issuing a new account is to prevent the fraud that would happen if someone found a lost card. Since you would not be responsible for the racked up charges the cc company would have to eat their loses and their not about to do that, believe me I know.

i had so much trouble trying to escape aol i really am at my whits end i went to the bank today and was told i can not cancel payment made with my debit card and aol can take money out of my account when they want to so i said ok i will cancel my card and was told that my new card no. would be given to aol so that they could continue to take the money out every month so now i might even have to change my bank and open account somewhere else very extreme i must say, i wish i had never heard of aol three years ago.

I just cancelled my credit card with CitiBank because they refuse to not let AOL charge my credit card even though I cancelled with AOL several months ago. I hate American Airlines almost as much as AOL. On my last vacation, when leaving London, I told the AA rep that I would never, ever fly AA again! So, I don't need the Citibank miles with AA.

Who owns AOL? And what could they possibly be thinking? They had a money machine that they are destroying. Does AOL have stock that we can sell short?