You TRY to teach them...

[crazyray]

...but they don't listen. My daughter and her husband signed up with AOL. Of course, now they want to cancel, but they actually arranged the account so that the $23 a month is directly deducted from their checking account.

Any advice from previous victims on how to avoid additional headaches?

Certified letter?

Notify the bank?

Hire armed guards?

[prttybean]

Oh no. They should talk to the bank to see if that authorization can be cancelled. It takes a good four months to get AOL convinced that you don't want the service anymore.

[NeoStarO1]

Yes been there and done that, You should have recieved a cancelation confirmation notice in the mail and also when you call in to cancel they also give you a cancelation number. Keep this number handy.

I had to go to my bank and put a stop to charges with AOL. They kept trying to bill me three consective months and didn't get there money and then sent me to collections. So what I did is got all my papers together and wrote a nice long polite letter to them and stated that the account was canceled on such and such date and here is the proof and sent it back to collections. The wiped the debt off after they relized AOL goofed up.

They are notrious for this.

Hope this helps.

NeoStar

<edit> when you sent the info to AOL or whoever, AOL requires stuff to be faxed or mailed. Make sure you mail it by certified mail with signature required.

[storm2k]

i am ever so happy i got off of aol --- all the way back in 1995!

Change bank account to a new one - different branch - and put stop payment on them - then renew it for about a year!

wiz

[S.D.Willie]

what's an aol?? hehe

Absolutely Out of Luck




SD

Then again, AOL's billing department seems to work in extremes. A friend of mine cancelled service in late 1999, he never was sent a cancellation notice, AOL ceased all billing in early 2000, and his account worked perfectly fine for most of 2000-2001. If that isn't screwed up, I don't know what is?!

Robert Richmond

[DutchMaster]

I think they forgot the "h" and a couple of "s"es

You know they are in Europe too? Wonder, shouldn't it be EOL then?

What is all this AOL freaking' out stuff?
You just call and cancel.
You get a cancellation number.
If possible the name of the person you speak with including an employee or identifying number.
If you set it to end on a certain date and ever log on after that they charge you.
It's a hassle to call but they just want to give you a million more hours for "free"..



Have I missed something? Or has AOL Changed drastically since June? I had an AOL account for my son. I was no problem to cancel ..

[caddmannq]

Funny thing, Sirius is doing the same to me. Canceled 3 mos. ago, no bill, service still works fine. I can still log on two PC's at once to the same dial-up, but I don't get their cutsie newsie e-mail any more.

As for AOL: That 1000 free hours sounds so fantastic to people that don't know how many hours in a month (or day even!) but you can actually save all of $10 ~ $20 over a regular local ISP.

The first time I do a house call to fix AOL, my bill is MINIMUM $100!
$200 if I backup, reformat, reinstall & set you up with a regular ISP.

And I've been told that I work too cheap. (Side work, you know...)

Whatta deal!....huh? (For ME!)

Still, I think it's unethical to actually encourage people to install AOL.