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AOL - Hard to Cancel

AOL/America Online • AOL Pays $3 Million, Promises to Clean Up Cancellation Process • AOL Settles Florida Fraud Charges • AntiSpyware Group Targets AOL Release As Dangerous • AOL Heads Roll Over Data Leak • AOL Now Free ... Sort Of • AOL Takes More Hits In Press, On Internet • AOL's Problems Worsen as Consumer Complaints Mount • AOL Embarrassed by CNBC Report On Its Business Practices • E-Mail Taxation Without Representation • AOL, Yahoo Planning Postage Charges for Email • AOL Settles With NY, Agrees to Clean Up Cancellation Process • Ohio Settles Lawsuit With AOL • AOL Abandons Broadband • Ohio Latest to Sue AOL • AOL Loses 2 Million Clients, Faces Subpoenas • Class Action Accuses AOL of Double-Billing Scheme • AOL Offers to Settle Federal Charges --- Consumer Complaints • Cancellation Difficulties • Double-billing • "Free" Hours • Unauthorized Charges • Shop-Direct Complaints • Tech Support

It's been said that canceling AOL is harder than eradicating the common cold. It seems that AOL wants to be your Internet-service-for-life.

Robert of Union City, GA May 19, 2009

AOL is continuing to bill for a service I no longer have. The service has been discontinued since 2005.

margreta of philadelphia, PA May 18, 2009

It has taken me 10 months to cancel my AOL account. For everyone of those 10 months, AOL charged to my VISA 25.90. When I sought help over the telephone, the customer agent repeatedly hung up on me.

Rico of West Palm Beach, FL May 17, 2009

It is totally impossible to cancel an account with aol online which is what they say you can do. They have made it impossible to do it.

Edward of Redditch, United Kingdom May 12, 2009

I wanted to change from AOL's dialup to broadband in October 2008. A leaflet from AOL (inserted in a magazine) indicated that one could sign up to broadband and could 'cancel anytime'. I telephoned the number and was told that I had to signup for 18 months and no amount of arguing was going to change their mind. I therefore decided to cancel with AOL altogether and I signed up for broadband with our UK BT (British Telecomms). OK, I had to sign up for 12 months, but at least they were up front with it.

I sent an email to AOL in October 08 requesting cancellation giving them the required details in oreder to do so. However, they kept charging my Credit Card each month, so I kept sending reminder emails and used their ever changing system forms for cancelling. My last email to them was February 09. They kept taking my money. I then contacted my Credit Card company (which I had threatened to do). They Already knew of problems with AOL cancellation. They sent me a form which I completed and they Refunded the offending subscriptions. Now AOL have been continually contacting me demaing that I pay the 'live' account, some £80! I have refused and keep expaling that I had cancelled and that I have documentary evidence. Tonight, they have have indicated that they are going to send in the bailiffs.

I don't what the hell to do as baliffs will enforce and there is nothing you can do to stop them and they will add on their considerable costs. I am totally stuck, I am being persued by a company, which in my opinion, is committing fraud and I do not know what to do to stop them. Can anyone help or advise as I at my wits end and extreemly stressed out? Please help - anyone, please...

Douglas of Coconut Creek , FL May 5, 2009

In april 2008, I had a AOL,CD saying 1 month free. I used it for 1 week, and then my computor broke.I had called AOL,and told them I was cancelling the free month, and service for good.I had bought a new high speed system.I signed up with Comcast. The new system does not take dial up, it has to be connected to a high speed cable connection

Danny of martinsburg, WV May 5, 2009

i try out aol for 90 days free and only use it for about 30 days if that much, and i call and had my account drop, this was way back in april of last year, and now its 5/5/09 and on saturday i notice they took out 77 so i call and they said they did not take it yet and i told them they had no right to take it and on monday they took it and they keep telling me it will take 2-3 months but 2-3 never came for them and they still keep pulling money out, the day i use it for 30 days i call and had it drop the account but they seem not to have that on file, they was told not to take money and they did two days later, something needs to be done about this tomany people getting rip off by them stealing money

Linda of Port Orchard, WA May 1, 2009

I have been lied to and cheated for 9 months while trying to get AOL to close an account I was paying for in my daughter's name.

They told me they could not bring up an account using my daughter's name, phone number or address. Nor could they bring up an account using my name. They wanted me to provide the number to the card they were charging for AOL services, however, it was replaced by a new one so I did not have access to the old number. I was told by one supervisor (Christine in the Philipines) that I needed to get the authorization number from my bank for the latest transaction and she could locate the account that way. Unfortunately, when I called back I got a different call center, India, and the supervisor there, Jack, so I had to start from the beginning with searching by names and phone numbers etc. then he said he could not use the authorization number (that I took the time to get from my bank) to bring up an account and he did not know why Christine would have told me such a thing was possible. Now we are at 1.5hrs on the phone, today alone, and he says I'm out of luck cancelling the account if I cannot give him the Visa number used to initiate the account! WHAT!!

I asked how many other call centers they have and he said there was only India and the Philipines. So I called until I got the Philipines call center and asked to speak to Christine, who of course, was not available so I spoke to Supervisor Axel. He used the Authorization number, that Jack said could not be used, to bring up an account and guess what? He brought up the account and guess what? It was in my daughter's name! The name Christine said she could not bring up an active account in! He said he could have brought it up under her name and that it was an active account. He is the first AOL employee to be able to bring up any active account that I was being billed for. That is why I believe they are liers and cheats! He said that since there were no calls made previously, he could not not refund any charges.

I told him that having no notes of my or my daughter calling previously does not mean we did not. We were simply told there was no active account to make notes on. I actually had a bit of a conversation about that issue with both Christine and Jack as well as Axel. So, the rule about having proof that you have tried to cancel an account or they will have to refund you... well they get around that by just pretending they can't find an account until one day you get someone who will actually admit to bringing up the "active" account that you are being bogusly billed for; you have no proof you ever called before because there are no notes on the account as they "could not locate an active account" any other time you called, therefore you are stuck paying for something you didn't even get to use.

Holly of Hollywood, FL April 27, 2009

I went to an AOL free service, after paying them for 12 years a monthly fee. The deactivated my account and will not tell me why unless I write to them, which, of course, take forever to resolve this problem. I called 3 different executives at AOL and have not received call backs. I do not have access to my email.

Bernard of Grand Rapids, MI April 25, 2009

I too have been ripped off by AOL in trying to cancel the internet service. I was an AOL internet subscriber for about 15 years and always paid my fees on time. Many years ago I went to annual service fee charged to my credit card in January/February. This year 1/24 an annual fee of 239 popped up on my credit card. I called the card company to dispute it and they put a hold on the charge. I tried calling AOL to cancel on 1/26/09 and they said they would and a cancellation notice was received. I thought that was the end of it. Two months later it showed up again on my credit without notice. I contacted the credit card company and they said AOL had sent in the "paperwork" documenting my responsibility to pay. I said that I had a cancellation notice and had not had the service for two months. The credit card company said to fax in the cancellation notice. I did but the 239 was never taken off. I paid the credit card bill and called AOL's "customer service" again. "Mike" the accented "supervisor" I talked to said he was "powerless" to refund any money even though I had a cancellation and essentially was not using the service for the year's worth of premiums I was paying ahead of time. He said the only thing he could do was to re-start my service which I did not want of course. I stated that no other service for which I pay simply charges me without notice ahead of time--no other utility etc. simply goes into my credit card account and charges me like that--none. He gave me this song and dance that I had been "notified" in September with the chance to cancel by October. I made two points to him: 1. The email notice was four months in advance (among many other emails) and no other utility does it so far in advance of a due date, where one would expect a later notice. 2. The purport of the email was that AOL annual subscription customers could change to a monthly fee. I did not want to change to a monthly fee; I wanted to use up my prepaid annual subscription and then when they notified me like any other utility about 4 weeks in advance, then I would cancel it. This practice should be considered fraud and a congressional investigation is in order.

Ann of Belmont, MA April 25, 2009

I had an aol account from 2001 until 2004. I believe they did not cancell it in May of 2004 when I requested it. Many people obtained my pass word through my son and daughter, so I requested my account and screen name cancelled. I was accused of sending bad or discusing e-mails that I did not send. my young daughter was recieving strange e-mail from our own account. I think that screen name could be still being used by someone other than me. those e-mails caused court action against me and yet no one has stopped that account. I tryed several times via e-mail and telephone to remove my screen name and account but aol did not do that. How can I find out if someone is still using it? AOL will not help me.

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