AOL Reviews

This went on for some months with AOL billing my account twice! This doubled my bank charges. Each month I would call AOL billing and tell them that they were to cancel my account and stop billing my bank account. Every time they said that they would correct their error. Finally they told me that I had to FAX them a request to stop services.

My bank was made aware of the situation and they told me that they had problems with AOL and unauthorized charges with other bankers. I was not the only one having problems with AOL!

I called AOL, and like countless of other people, waited 45 minutes for the first employee, who was very sorry for my troubles and who transferred me to another line where waited 15 minutes for Robert to pick up, who gives me a fake email address. After discussing the issues with him and finding that he found no record of my cancellation, and no records of previous problems with AOL ignoring my requests.

I demanded cancellation and after his obligatory offer of some new great service which I declined, he transfers me again and the line disconnected.

While I had been on the phone waiting on hold during this hour, I was also trying to cancel on-line. Interestingly, the page and email address for complaints and cancellation requests was not working. I emailed all the other contacts (requests for service changes etc) and demanded cancellation.

I had to hang up after he got me to the point that I was crying.

Then once I did reach a representative they would not take I want to cancel for an answer. I did not even ask for a refund for the previous months I just did not want their service anymore. Finally after sticking to my guns he said fine I will put in your request for cancellation. But suprise suprise the next month the charges were there again.

Since that time, my credit card was being billed for this service that I do not receive. I DID in July 05' talk to someone at AOL telling them I no longer wanted their service. 'Andra' informed me there was nothing he could do about it and that I not only could not get my monies back but that I owed for this account. I asked to talk to a supervisor and he then very rudely explained that I was talking to the person that made the decisions.

I told him that I would call back at a different time to speak to someone who could help me. I called back two days later, on 6/22/06 and spoke to a 'Leonard' who also informed me that there was nothing he could do about the account and that it would go into collections. I again asked to speak to someone who could help me to search this issue out. As I am quite sure they could tell that I have not accessed the account, and was again informed there was nothing or no one else I could speak to.

They are not having a problem charging the credit card that is in my name, only canceling these accounts. Now apparently I have a THIRD ACCOUNT out there that I can't cancel? This is just stupid and if I have to close my credit card account I will to keep them from charging me anymore.

I finally got AOL on the phone again and after being cut-off twice explained that I no longer wanted their service and that I would write a letter to the Company to request a refund for all the charges since last November.

Well, someone there gave me an address in Jacksonville, Florida which turned out to be wrong, as the letter came back to me with another address in Virginia posted on the face of the envelope. AOL's practices are deplorable. This is no way to treat their customers, especially a long-standing customer like myself. I am hoping they will reverse all the charges back from November 2005. If not, I will have to pursue this through the Better Business Bureau.

After that, I called twice, only to have my call dropped again and the second time I got through to someone...then I was told that they were sorry and they cancelled after 52 minutes on the phone!!!

Two months later, i found that I billed for my free trial and that my account was billed again. I called and provided my confirmation number. They cancelled the account but to this day will not provide a refund because they say my confirmation is one number short.

When I spoke to someone in customer service, they told me at to put in writing that I wanted to cancel and give a reason. I did just that and faxed it over.

Two days later, someone from their office call in told me since I was a long time customer that I would get up to three months of free service to give me time to think things over. After three months, I called and faxed another letter to them requesting that they disconnect my services. They disconnect it. But as of today, I call my bank because I wanted to know what the electronic payment for 30.90 was for.

My bank told me that was for AOL services. As of today, I am having difficulties contacting them to disconnect. However, I will go to my bank in request that they do not accept any deductions from account.

When I answer the call it is a recording stating that it is not a solicitation, that it involves a very important matter and I must call 888.844.5604. When I call I frequently get a person that I can hardly understand, they sound middle-eastern, definitely foreign accent.

After I explain the situation many, many times I asked to speak to their supervisor. Last week the unpleasant, sarcastic voice at the other end hung up on me 3 times and transferred me to 2 different voice mails. I think she also increased the number of times my number was called that weekend so instead of getting 2/day I received 6 calls on Saturday alone.

I have never had an account with AOL. I am at my wits end.

I called AOL again - this process took at least two hours to get to a live person - who advised me he would cancel and I had to write a letter asking for refund. I wrote a detailed letter, asking them to contact me and not my son directly and also sent a letter to the credit card company and a copy of the AOL letter.

The Credit card company was very responsive, told me they could refund 90 days worth of AOL charges and would not accept further charges. I never heard from AOL.

Two weeks later, Eric received a letter from AOL acknowledging that he had signed up for a new service I again contacted the company by phone (another wasted two hours)and sent copies of all correspondence to them and to the credit card company.

Two weeks later, Eric called me, very upset (he is developmentally disabled as I clearly explained to the company) saying he had received a notice of being in arrears on his AOL bill and to pay immediately.

Another phone call, another set of letters went out and, just yesterday another call from Eric that he has received a notice that his account was overdue and explaining that he had cancelled before his contract was up! I have no idea what to do to cancel this account.

I will use my paypal card to pay monthly bills-I arrived to pay my electric bill only to find out later AOL took that money also! My electricity got shut off and it cost me $30 to get turned back on!

AOL said I only cancelled one of my screen names, so I was still being charged for the other screen name. Every AOL, account can have up to five different screen names. I am being told that two of them were closed and the third is still being charged the regular monthly fee.

I was told to call their fraud line. I called the number and got a recording that the fraud office was closed. I have lost $270 in money "stolen" from my bank account.

I have reported this to them many times. No changes and they deny it.

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This debt has been turned over to a collection agency. I am in the process of trying to establish good credit and this makes me mad due to the fact that i do not owe this bill.

AOL went into my checking account and took $25.90 out three times. I was told when I was thinking of signing up I would not be billed until the end of June. I caught the unauthorized charges by a phone bank alert and stopped two of the payments. I have called them repeatly and was told they would refund the charges. They never have and I doubt they will.

I am a single mother living on a modest income. I have experienced several bank overdraft charges as a result of AOL double billing and unauthorized charges. On 5/3/06 one AOL Consultant named Frank, informed me that I would have to bite the bulet on these unauthorized bank charges. My experience with AOL trying to resolve these charges has become a nightmare that has left me frustrated with many sleepless nights and so frustrated and my stomach in knots. I do not understand how AOL can get away with deliberate fraud and not be held accountable?

The only resolution I was able to get was a month free of aol (which they will probally bill me for later when they think I am not looking). This has occured with them for at least a couple of years.

West Sussex, UK.

Monday, May 22, 2006 nearly four weeks later, not having received the credit, I called again to be advised I will receive a $100.00 credit against my credit card account buy must write to the AOL Corporate office at 22000 AOL Way, Dulles, VA 20166 for further inquiry. I feel they are now making me jump thru hoops to get my credit. I have informed the CSR during this last call that they have all the information of this issue and that I and very close to filing a complaint with the Consumer Protection Bureau of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

No real consequences, but when attempting to contact the Billing Manager, my email was refused.

When I received the confirmation that my account was cancelled I though I would receive a refund but I never did so I called them to find out why not. The AOL phone representative said I only had a 50 day free trial and not a 90 day free trial. The packaging the CD came in was for 90 free days - not one word about 50 days - a bold face lie!

I have been billed for over $300 in unauthorized charges.

I got the next bill and I got the credit like they said but I got another charge, I called AOL and explained the situation, they said that I no longer have to worry about this. Then I got another phone bill with another charge from AOL stating I only have to pay approximately $12.00, I called verizon and asked them if the amount due was correct and the woman that I spoke to said yes, so I told her I hope there would be no fishy stuff on the next bill, she said no. A few weeks after that incident I got a payement letter from AOL stating that I owed them $28.90, I called AOL and asked them why am I receiving a bill, and the AOL rep told me that I owed them that amount of money, so I disputed with her because I shouldnt have to pay them anything because I ended my services before my free trial ended and Verizon said I wouldnt have to worry about any more billing from AOL.

Verizon was the one who gave me credit on my phone bill. So I told the rep that AOL needs to contact verizon and take care of this situation. So today I got a collection notice stating that I owe AOL the $28.90, I dont need to be sent to a collection agency when I have no reason to be getting charged for services that I canceled before the time needed, also what discrepencies that Verizon did to my phone bill they need to resolve it with AOL or vice versa. I continually called AOL and verizon that I shouldnt be getting charged for none of this, but now Im sent to a collection agency.

I am livid as I wait for their customer service rep. on my speaker phone. Having to listen to interruptions on how I can access my account online, inbetween patches of awful music is a nice touch. Average waiting time is 2 minutes, give or take 45.

I already have high speed internet with Qwest for less than the $30.94 billed my phone bill.

This has caused me much mental stress for me and my family and want AOL to go away, I cannot believe that someone is sitting up in the top offices laughing at how much money they are making off of people, it is sickening.

I have a confirmation of the fax I sent to customer service, but they still continue to bill me. I am paying for 2 internet services.

Not only was I charged an additional $39.99 on this statement, but they had charged me an addition $39.99 that had not yet shown up on my card. And I was on my way to a third charge for the June billing of $39.99. This is all in addition to my regular monthly fee.

I sent a letter to billing operations, and was told they probably wouldn't do anything more than the reps would, but I would receive an answer in two weeks.

$23.90 x 24= $563.60 plus interest for the two years. Not counting the reams of paper and phone calls over the years to try and get my money back.

I haven't spoken to anyone yet but I have heard that AOL has a history of this dishonest practice. I will be contacting AOL to request a refund and to terminate my account with them.

When I called I told the rep to cancel the acct that I didn't want it anymore. Then this morning I woke up to call my cable company to make a payment to them and my credit card was denied due to insuficiant funds. When I called the card company they told me that AOL took the money.

After 20 minutes of asking for the cancellation number the sales lady said "ok your account is still active, have a nice day". My girlfriend said "No, I don’t want AOL, please give me a cancellation number". Finally she got the cancellation number.

AOL should be sued for strong arming people into paying for AOL's service.

The trouble started in December when AOL said I signed up for Road Runner service, which Time Warner informed them wasn't true. Then AOL started double billing me for not only my unlimited service, but also for limited service (charged by the minute). After numerous phone calls and service disconections, I instructed my credit card company not to pay them.

Finally, I got them to credit the limited service charges after numerous phoning, but they terminated me and charged me a $25 termination fee. Even though I paid this, their collection department calls me twice a day. What a nightmare!

Multiple charges have caused overdraft charges that have severely impacted my family's financial standing.

I received this on the 14th of April and called on the 16th to cancel my service. I spoke to Scott who informed me that they had already billed my account and that they would issue a refund 90 days from today. I explained to him that because they billed me early my account was overdrawn. His only response was "that's not good". When I told him that was totally not ethical and legal he hung up on me.

I tried to email the "billing mgr", but naturally they don't accept email.

The AOL guy was very pushy. He said if you go with Earthlink you'll ruin your computer because it doesn't offer the same protection as aol and if you do get protection it's going to cost you a lot of money. He said that I should have earthlink and aol both (because I told him that I signed up for a package with Sprint for telephone,satalite,and dsl) because of the protection that AOL offers. He said that he was going to connect me with a person who would get me High Speed Aol . When he transfered the call and after a long wait on hold I hung up.

I called back and this time I spoke to a woman. She said, "You just signed up for highspeed AOL today" !!! She finally agreed to cancel my service and I thought that that would be the end of it until today when I opened a letter that said "thank-you for agreeing to continue your subscription with Aol" and that I'd be charged $25.90 per month as agreed.

Sure enough there was a credit for $47.80 within a few days. Shortly after that there was another debit for $23.90. More than a little tired of this battle I called again to get it corrected. This time they told me I had set up 2 accounts instead of one when I signed up. Okay...then cancel both. Not so easy. They changed the one to $4.95 and now told me I have to wait until the full 90 day trial is up before they will credit me the $23.90.

I explained that had not been the case in the past and was told the previous AOL employees I spoke with were misinformed. Okay, so who's the idiot here? Bottom line is AOL is a rip-off who will not correct their mistakes and the consumer is the one who has to pay for it. AOL is not America On Line....it's Alot Of Lies.

My husband told her maybe we should get a lawyer and she said are you threatening me My husband replied no but are you? We can not get a straight answer. We did not sign up, join or anything..we did't even have access after January.

This is an injustice. I do not know what to do about this. This supervisor at AOL was rude and did not attempt to understand what I was asking. I no longer want this service nor to have anything else to do with AOL.

When I called to cancel the rep kept badgering me to continue with the service and after repeatedly refusing he put me on hold for 10 minutes. When he came back on the phone he said, "Thank you for waiting" and hung up. I called back and reiterated my experience to this person and was told the first guy never did cancel my account. So this man said he would.

To be clear I asked if there were any charges I should expect since I was on the 90 day free trial. He said no. Three months later I get a charge from AOL on my account for $3.95 for McAfee. I told the rep I had cancelled everything, plus I was on a free trial. He said McAfee was through a separate billing/account department and he didn't know the details of how that worked. When I reiterated I had not knowingly signed up for this service he said a credit was processed for $3.83 which should show up within 10 business days. After all of that "Steve" tried to sell me on some other AOL service!

My checking account has been charged for insufficent funds on way to many occasions and I will gladly send you a bill for highblood pressure meds and complications.

We have written letter after letter and nothing! Aol has ruined our visa account with no explanation.We are now lost and do not know where to go from here. The fraud department said they would put 3 months back on our visa account that was a lie. Nothing has been done.

I did, however cancel my single service for which I was paying triple for and they had the guts to debit my account again on 11/21/05. At that time I was forced to cancel my debit card with my bank. I had only one service and I feel like AOL has ripped me off, and even more so since I have run into all of these similar complaints on this website. There is no talking to those people, whatsoever, but I would sure like to get back the money that AOL has stolen from me. I have my bank documentation to back up what I am saying if it should become necessary to aquire it. Thank You for any help you can give me, I have a real problem with thieves.

Economic Damage : There were two occasions that I became overdrawn and incurred a bank charge for that. Physical Damage : Just alot of anger and frustration at the amount of time I spent trying to recoupe what AOL stole from me, but to no avail. They just run you ragged until you just can't take the incompetence anymore.

By the second week in March I had my Optimum On Line connected, up & running, so I canceled the AOL account. That is until I saw the charge on my bank statement. When I called AOL they could or would not tell me how they got my credit card information or why they would even bill me when my subscription was not even up yet. I was put on hold & then informed that I was billed for the 2nd week of Feb. thru the 2nd week of March, & they realized the the billing cycle did not match up because my free subscription had not ended yet. Though I asked repeatedly how did they get my credit card information, they would not provide me with an answer.

To add insult to injury, they stated that it will take 3 months before the money gets put back into my account!! First they were never authorized to take my money & now it will take them 3 months to return it? This is incredulous to me! How is it possible that a major company such as AOL can tap into your personal information & use it to their advantage? Is there any way that I can make this company return the money they 'stole' from my account sooner? This to me is theft for I have never given my credit card information to them nor my authorization for AOL to go into my bank account and steal my money.

The first month, our Discover account was billed $4.95 as agreed. The second month, we were billed $262. Upon calling the service center, and subsequent discussion with the rep's supervisor, they stuck to a statement that our account was a 'limited online access' account of 3 hours for ANY online connection, and subsequent charges for each hour exceeding that.

As I informed them that this was not what the previous representative proposed, and it would make no sense to pay Verizon for internet access and pay such an onerous fee for a redundant service from AOL, the rep and then supervisor offered to refund $224 but could not refund the final $35 of an 'overage charge' for exceeding the maximum hours for a plan I never agreed to. Also, the current month is already billed at $38 which they will not refund either.

Needless to say, I cancelled the AOL immediately, and am now filing a dispute with Discover to rescind the charges that I never agreed to pay for AOL services. Where this will end up, I don't know, but I do think a class action law suit needs to happen here. The operator at Discover told me her brother had the same experience, and I am sure many other have as well - this appears to be a well-formulated bait and switch scheme that has support from all levels of AOL management, and their front-line operatives are coached in apologizing and cajoling irate customers into accepting less than full-refunds, while denying access to any level of management.

After reading all the other accounts of double billing, and other phantom charges, it's apparent that AOL moves from one scheme to another depending on customers' failure to analyze credit card bills to reap un-earned and illegal remuneration.

The only thing they did to clear this up is sell the account to a collection agency that calls about seven times a day. You can't believe the inconvinence I put up with in the early days of AOL, dropped connections, constant busy signals resulting in not being able to connect for hours and the unbelievable spam mail I had to sift through. Thanks for all the years of loyalty I gave them.

I continued to have AOL pop-up and constant calls to reactivate the account. My credit card company credited my account, however, AOL continues to request payment for service I never use. They claim I reactivated the account. After speaking with an AOL representative, I was advised to remove the AOL icon from my computer. I did this but continues to receive annoying phone calls and just today a letter referral to the collection department. I have called the AOL phone number to complain about this practice and have been told they are unable to help me resolve this issue.

I had two months billed to my credit card ($23.99 ea) and I have no intention of paying for service I never received and canceled 3 months prior.

I had no way of knowing what they would debit my account for anymore and therefore I could not file an affidavit for the unauthorized debit because the bank goes by the exact dollar amount and not the name of the creditor. This went on for over 6 months. causing overdrafts,etc and time, etc. to go to the bank with a new affidavit every month. I was informed by a bank rep. that AOL was infamous for this type of practice, as well as other scams. She told me that the only way I could stop AOL was to close my account and open another one.

I had no choice. So I closed the account and opened another. However, I had been dealing with this branch for many years and received a few "perks" on my account, such as free overdraft protection under $300.00. I soon discovered, that since the bank had recently changed hands and I had closed my account, I no longer received any of the advantages I had accumulated over the years on my old account. I was not told this at the time I closed my old account.

AOL has cost me dearly. I thought I was rid of them. My employer used AOL (although he complained all the time). I therefore had an account assigned to me under his with AOL. I no longer work for this employer and my e-mail address has been deleted. Yet I anticipate being billed for AOL -- AOL said I somehow reactivated it (how could I reactivate it when I did not "own" it to begin with. the account was my employer's not mine). I was without a computer and, therefore, internet service for a couple weeks after I left employment -- How could I re-activate the account without using the internet???? I have attempted to cancel this account also -- yet each time i call AOL and actually get to speak to a person, they state that I've never called to cancel and I will be charged. etc.

I explained to him that it was the instruction provided, and he said the instruction was to go back thru AOL.COm and not by signing thru my account. I don't understand this. I believe it was misleading people. I just want my refund back.

I then rang and spoke to a supervisor who apologised for that mix up and that they had not cancelled my antivirus. I was then offered for that payment to be added to the following month, which i excepted thinking that they would now be taking a payment of 29.99(actual monthly fee for my package) plus 22.50. To my horror i received a letter from my bank stating that they would be changing me 35 as AOL tried to claim the 25 straight away. I rang AOL and spoke to a supervisor yet again who said sorry more times than i can count, he agreed with me that there had been an error on AOL's side, and informed me that on my next due date, the 29.99 was going to be waived, also they would remove the antivirus fee, and there would only be the first amount, which i assumed to be 22.50. Then on i recently rang up again to make sure they would be taking the right amount and was again surprised to be told that they would be taking 26.

After discussions again i was told that they would credit my account (as in take money off) by the amount of 5, but that 5 was to be taken off the following months bill, so i excepted this. Then i ring my bank on 14th march 2006 just to make sure AOL took the 26. My bank then informed me that AOL tried to claim 21 and 26 and that they will be closing my account due to occurances on my bank account. I have actually spoken to AOL roughly 6 times over the 14th march. I was firstly advised that a manager would call me back within an hour, but i didn't receive that call, so i rang them back (each time you ring up, you have to explain the whole thing to everyone you speak to). I spoke to another supervisor, explained it all again and asked what they were going to do to resolve the issue. I was then told that they would pass my details onto the billing department who would call me back.

I spoke to the billing department, and asked them if they would ring my bank to fix the problem they caused and was told "NO" and the matter was left unresolved. I later in the day rang back asked to speak to the last supervisor, and was advised they had no way to put me through to that same person, but could i explain it again to them. I asked them to look at the notes on my account (after each of these calls i asked them to log down the details of each call, to which i have found out they have not been doing). I asked for his name and was told, AOL is required to give out staff names. I then asked if calls are recorded to which they said "yes,but not all", although it doesn't actually say that on the recordings or when you speak to staff. I then asked if i could listen to or have a copy of these recordings (as i though you could have access under the freedom of information act) and they told me they don't have to and wont allow me access to those recordings. So basically im stuck.

Just a few added details, i have or had a cash only account with lloydstsb, and they don't allow these type of accounts to go overdrawn or unpaid fee's. Plus i am currently unemployed, hence the reason why monitor my bills and have exact amounts paid into my account just for my bills, nothing more.

Please if anyone has any advice on what i can do next, as one of their staff made a point of telling me over and over again, "your bound by a 12 month contract sir, so there is no way of cancelling"

Thanks

I dispute the charges. And was told by my CC co. to contact AOL, which is the most obstinate thing I've encountered lately, to discuss cancellation. The account has not shown any activity.

Today, 3/6/06 I called and was kept on the phone for over an hour by customer service rep 'John' through a series of long "holds" where the 'John' was trying to "identify" my accounts. When he finally did, after nearly 30 minutes, he said that I certainly deserved a rebate of the charges against the the two accounts I was still being charged for but that he would have to put me on the line with his supervisor, Ashante so that she could help me. I was kept on the phone waiting for another 20 minutes,during which time john would come back on every 5 minutes and assert that "you must be very frustrated but Ashante will be right with you.

Ashante wanted me to repeat everything I had said to 'John', a gambit she dropped when I asked her if it was necessary to repeat everything since john had told me he had already communicated it to her. She continued to obfuscate by reading boiler plate statements to me that attempted to lay off liability and to resell the product. I asked her to stop and told her that if she continued I would report her and AOL to consumer fraud organizations.

At that point she told me that if I wanted her to report the extra accounts to the AOL consumer fraud department that she would keep the account open through the 4/21/06 billing cycle. I asked if she was telling me that she wasn't cancelling the accounts that I had been on the phone for over an hour trying to cancell. She dodged the question and said the account needed to be kept open in order to investigate it. I demanded that she cancell the accounts and she said then If I wanted to cancell the accounts I have to report the fraud myself by calling the AOL fraud line. I persisted and she finally gave me a cancellation number.

I remember subscribing to AOL on line service apox. one yr ago. I was told that there would be a 3 month trial period free of charge. Prior to the ending of my three months free trial I called aol to cancell the account and was told by the representative that the account was cancelled without penalty since I had done so before the 3 month trial period. Now a yr. later I have discovered the account was never cancelled and I have been billed by AOL for over a aprox. one yr, when I was told by aol that the account was closed.

AOL has no record of me using this account. since I have not used aol. I have been trying to reach aol to dispute this account and has been unsuscessful. The automated system prompts for account information such as a screen name etc. information that I cannot provide since I have not subscribe to AOL for internet service.

The real reason for this complaint is prior to cancellation, AOL had led the world to believe that cancelling accounts would have their mail addresses converted to AIM mail addresses, and that mail addressed to their aol.com address would be received. This has not turned out to be the case for me. Then recently, they sent out a CD - "special offer for aol alumni" - claiming 90 days risk free, no credit card required, etc. "just pop in your free cd-rom! enter the registration number and password from the package".

In the hope of restoring my email account, I went for it. But they never asked for a registration number - they DID require a credit card, and only offered the standard 50-day free trial open to anyone. But I went through with it hoping to restore my former email address, secure in the knowledge that I could call their 24/7 customer service to cancel at any moment. Yeah, right. I uninstalled their software within an hour of installing it, but 6 phone calls to their 24/7 line attempting to cancel my account have met with "we're sorry, but we are unable to answer your call at this time", only after a lengthy prelude.

Bill informed me that they have merged with Charter and instead of being billed the approximately $24 per month starting in May then AOL would only bill me $9.95 per month to have unlimited free services that involve what I use the online services for. He also told me that I would have to call back to confirm the cancellation after a certain period of time. I said "No, I'm very busy working about 60 hours per week, I do not use the AOL service, nor do I want to call back to cancel it again. I want it cancelled effective immediately. Bill then got irate with me, and cut me off and sent me to some recording that has supposedly confirmed the cancellation. The recording also mentioned that I have to log back into the aol email account that I set up to receive a confirmation of the cancellation as well as I will be receiving a written confirmation via U.S. mail within 14 days.

I then hit "0" to once again speak with a representative from AOL to confirm this cancellation. This time I got Josh. I explained the situation about Bill to Josh, and Josh apologized, but then asked why I'm cancelling. I said, "that is not important, as I just want to cancel the service." Josh said o.k. and gave me an actual confirmation number (which Bill did not do), and also said I would receive a confirmation via email to the AOL email account. I will be checking that email account one more time for this notice of cancellation, but I have given AOL plenty of time to not charge my credit card. I do not use AOL and I will never do business with them again. Cancelling this service should not be as difficult as pulling teeth.

I noticed the double billing over six months ago and tried to resolve it on line. I was told that they could not give me information as I was not the master name on the account, yet they were billing ME! I called and spoke with a gentleman that told me he saw that I had two accounts! I argued with him as I never authorized two accounts. He told me that I would be reinbursed.

At that time, he told me that he would give me a deal on my AOL service. $14.00 a month. I told him that I wanted to stop the payment from my checking account and set up charge of $14.00 to go on my Visa Card in case there was any other disputed charges. This past month I looked at my checking account. I was still being charged for two accounts and also my Visa account was charged!

I just went into a constant circle with the voice response unit and the wait queue for the live customer rep. Never could cancel account thru their cancel account phone number. I had to write a letter to them. By this time it was time to bill again even though I was not using their service.

I have made 3 calls again and each time I am either refered to some one or told I have to call the Fraud Dept - but when I called I was told by a recording the Fraud dept is closed and to call back durring business hours.

I have spoken to many different AOL employees who have all promised to have the issue resolved in, I quote, " 24 hours", "72 hours", "48 hours", "this week", etc. While the phone calls have ended, the billings still arrives and now with threats of sending the billing to a collection agency.

Whenever I ask to speak to a supervisor I have been disconnected or left for long periods of time on hold. Tonight, as an example, "Ian" left me on hold for 22 minutes and then I was disconnected. When I called back and told him I still needed to talk to a supervisor, he told me I had not been disconnected and then put me on hold again. For 27 minutes I waited and was disconnected again because AOL's business hours were over.

I have had verbal promises via telephone that my account would be studied and corrected while my banking institution threatens to close my checking account due to AOL taking payments at $24.95 sometimes just a few days apart. It has totally ruined my credit.

To cut a very long story short, having checked back over our bank statements, with horror I discovered that we have been double-billed for four years!! In fact since we had signed up with the company. We too had been charged at either end of the month and assumed that one charge was for the most recent month and the other was for the current month. After sending a letter of complaint, followed by an email of complaint, we have been told that the responsibility lies with us, but as a gesture of 'good will' they have offered us 191-00 GBP.

As apparently the period given for lodging such a complaint is 180 days. Needless to say we plan to dispense with AOL as soon as we have reached a satisfactory outcome!!

Then the next day they turned it back on and said they would quit billing us at the end of the month 1/23/06 so we are now being charged for two months they were very rude and wouldnt answer any questions

This was setup this way because the lady who I spoke with made every concession to keep me on as a subscriber when I wanted to eliminate AOL. When I resubscribed, I was told it is like it was, I said fine. After a month I went to use my credit card from the bank and was told there was no money there, I went to the bank and found out that AOL had not taken out the $9.95 but almost $40.00. I hit the roof and called them and they told me that I did not have what I had originally reactivated but something else. I stopped payment on the transfer, only to find out that they had subsequently billed me for not only Dial-up service but Broadband too. This not only happened once but three months in a row. Calling them is of no help because they insist they don't do that, well my bank statement shows different. They bounced my account four times for $27.50 each time

I believe that the members of the class had to be certified by February or March 2006. Feel free to share my name. I would like to be included in that class, and my letter documents the period involved. I don't have my letter in front of me, but I believe the cost of AOL's improper billing amounted to $1600 over a course of many months.

Mrs J.****

$ 23.90 for dialup for present month

This is our bill each month and I just "caught it".

We should only be paying the $14.95 for present month - the rest are bogus.

AOL refuses to adjust these charges

Well to my surprise and much dissatisfaction, I saw a package offered where AOL was free with my Time Warner Road Runner account. I could not believe this. So I went ahead and ordered my service again through Time Warner and had the bundle package included. Immediately I called AOL. Now anyone who has tried dealing with AOL and getting real answers knows my pain. Now their customer service I have found to be very good most times however when it came to this topic, well it seemed as if they were all programmed to say the same thing. My question to them was why, if this was a package deal with Time Warner, have I been paying for this all of this time. Now I so far have spoken with 4 different representatives.

The very first lady that I talked too had told me that my account would be credited back from the time the service or package became available in my area (NE Ohio). Everyone after that basically told me that I was stuck and AOL would not be refunding any money to me. Needless to say I am quite angry over this issue. I can even remember at one point calling AOL (this was after having them for a few months) because I heard that if you had broadband service you could get a cheaper rate. So naturally I called them. In speaking with the representative I told him that I had Time Warner's Road Runner service, because he asked what broadband carrier I had.

Now at this point, if this package was available in my area, why then did this person not tell me of it. I can tell you why just as any other hard working man could. They wanted my money. Now granted, I do not know when it became available here in my area as I said. So that being the case, why then would AOL not maybe have sent out a sort of welcome letter to its new Time Warner customers, or even just a general letter to everyone at that time stating this better offer. Again, we all know why. I find this business practice to be very unethical of AOL. So far I have received no answers to explain this to me and again no one can tell me the time this took place here in my area. I don't expect to receive the entire year and a half back from AOL.

However I want what is owed to me. I'm curious to know, and it's funny because the last person at AOL I spoke with I told this and she got as quiet as a mouse, but I wonder how many other people hundreds probably thousands that have been taken advantage of in this, again, unethical way of doing business. I was told by one person at AOL that this was only offered to "new" Time Warner customers. And again, if that is true, what of its existing customers. AOL claims to be all about 100% customer service. With this issue, I have yet to see a percentage even close.

Then in 2 months i saw the same billing errors starting all over again, i called again, and they didnt want to offer me anything, finally the lady said she would credit me back all the mistakes which would have amounted into a free year of aol, they agreed and i agreed, now it is only dec and i am being billed again, i think i was sinply lied to so that the lady could get me off the phone, i am fed up with aol, they are truly scamming customers and telling that additonal accounts where taken out when they where not, i am disabled with MS and i have 2 little ones in my household i told the rep that so no one else took out an additional account she tried to blame it on a computer error and promised me a year of free aol to reemburse me for the double billing and the overbilling seeing i was bringing my own high speed connection and it should have only cost me $4.95 a month instead of the $9.99 they billed me plus the $23.90 they billed me for an additional account which i never had.

this is ridiculous i think, now today i got another popup i cant get on my aol account at acastellani as they are trying to get me to enter a different credit card, instead of my normal one they wont accept my normal one because they know i check that one for double billing now, it wont even let me put in my checking account it doesnt show that option unless unless i enter a new credit card that is fraud i think. if i want to use the bank account that option is not available the rep said until i put in a different credit card, that is fraud i think

I then decided that I was going to sign up for dsL again with another company. I logged onto the internet. I was obviuosly logged onto my grandmother's aol account which was how we are able to get on the internet at my house.When I put in a search for DSL ads for DSL with AOl came up.I clicked to sign up for DSL again that was going to be provided by aol.I put in my name as the billing contact. I also put in my phone number as well as my credit card information for the billing. I clicked send and was informed that shortly the dsl package would arrive. I at no point was asked an account security question or had any idea that aol thought I had ordered this service through my grandmothers account.

It turns out that "they say"(AOL) that by placing an order while I was logged on to the aol service through my mothers account I was signing her up for the DSl service.When I printed my confirmation It said nothing reffering to the fact that I had just added a feature to my grandmothers account. So basically I was unaware of the fact that AOl had assumed that my grandmother had requested DSL to her account.

I was under the impression that I had just signed up for a new DSL account. When the modem came I got on line. put by credit card and thought that all I had left to do was have my grandmother cancel her dial up account because we had obviously gotten a new account.

When I called to cancel her account they said that she had just signed up for DSl and that it would cost $150 to cancel. I said that this was ridiculous because i had ordered the DSL under a new account and the she had never authorized a change in her account. THey siad that because I had been loged onto her account it automatically adds the feature to her account. I told them that I had obviously put in all my information as far as billing. They said that it was irrelevant who I put under billing or contact.

I was exhausted and fustrated after beiong on the phone for an hour and speaking to three different people, which all gave me diffrent stories.THey all made me feel like an idiot for knowing that I had signed up for DSL through my grandmother's account. I then told them that it wasn't a valid contract because my grandmother had not athourized that service. They said it didn't matter.

I told them that it was ridiculous that I had to pay fifty dollars to cancel an account that I had thought was set up with DSl and had created with that intention. When in reality aol had added that feature on my grandmother's account and put her on a new 12 month contract.

At any rate they stated that although they had not clearly let me know to who's account I was adding serviceds to that I should "take it as a learning experience." its outrageous to me that they can be so loose about your account and adding services to that account. Had they verified in the ordering process that I was adding a service to the existing account I would have canceled my order. If they had bothered to ask for a account security question when ordering I would have knowth that I wasn't actually creating a new account.

He offered a broadband $7.95 monthly offer and I specifically said NO! He said okay, I know he was not happy because he insisted on trying to find out who I was going to and kelpt offering there services that I did not want. Than I noticed on my bank statements that they were charging me for a service that I did not even have. I have not been on AOL since two weeks after I canceled. I still had two weeks to use than the cancelation process was suppose to go through. This man did what he wanted to, he played with my money, he and AOL have stole my money. Veronica states that I okayed it and I stated I did not.

She did not want to help but to continue charging me. And than states that I will still be charged to cancel $14. and something. The first time I cancelled with AOL they never sent me a letter in the mail. This is not the first time I have had a problem with AOL. I know there are many dishonest people working for them and stealing our money, something needs to be done about dishonesty in the work place and no character within the work place. Thanks I am a resident ot Franklin, TN

They changed my service they probably messed up my billing info. She did not want to hear what I had to say and cut me off verbally everytime. She finally hung up on me when I would not respond the way way she wanted me to respond. AOL billed me for broadband and never sent my refund. They are doing somthing funny with accounts. It needs to be checked into. If you are an AOL customer, watch your back.

how does aol have access to add services not ordered to peoples phones? the phone # in question is 713-***-****.

julie ****

I initally spoke with Mr Albert **** on 8-24-05. He was very helpful and stated that he could see the double charges and that they go back as far as his computer could see. He also told me the second account name and that there had never been ANY usage on the account. He said he could cancel that account. He also told us that since we now had broadband, he could reduce our "real" account to just $7.95 per month. I agreed.

About a week later, I received a letter from AOL stating that they were very sorry I decided to terminate my account with them and what I should do if I wanted to reactivate. I was totally shocked as I did not want to, nor did I request that my "real" account be closed. I immediately called, told my story again, and they said not to worry because it was just referring to the fraudulent account that they had closed.

Mr **** had given me the address of AOL Billing Operations & Services and told me to inform them of the fraudulent account. I did so, but have not had a response. He also gave me the number to their Fraud department and I called to notify them. No response or correspondence from them to date. He also suggested I notify my credit card company to inform them of the dispute.

After speaking to AOL regarding the deactivation letter and being told not to worry, AOL shut down on my computer about 2 days later. I called yet again and went through the story again and again. The reps really don't pay any attention to what you're saying, assuming that they have heard it all and if you give them the information they want, they'll fix whatever's wrong and you'll go away. They want a credit card number so they can reactive the account. When I give them the card number, it won't go through because of the pending dispute. They ask for another card, which I will not supply for several reasons .. one is that I never requested that my account be closed so it shouldn't have been. The second and most compelling reason is that I just received my most current statement yesterday and discovered that I am still being double-billed! There is the charge for $23.90 on the 5th of the month and now a charge of $7.95 on the 25th of the month. Since the $7.95 was just arranged with Mr **** on the 24th of August, this is a new transaction. This means that the charge on the 5th of the month is the fraudulent account charge and I'm still being billed for it. I see absolutely no reason why I should give them another card number and we start this scenario all over again on a different credit card.

Besides my inital conversation with Mr ****, I have spoken to Dana, Anna, Jenny, Nicole, 2 other people whose names I neglected to ask for in my anger, and Mark who said he was a supervisor. I had been on hold 2 separate times yesterday to speak with a supervisor. Each time I was on hold for over 20 minutes until the calls each disconnected. Each time I called back. I spent over 2 hours on the phone to AOL just yesterday alone.

I finally told Mark "the supervisor" (who only said everything the other reps told me)that he COULD go ahead and cancel my account and that this time he even had my permission. There are so many other companies to choose from. I also told Mark "the supervisor" that during the past 3 weeks I had heard of many other people who have encountered this double billing problem with AOL. Mark, however, had resorted to silence when he wasn't repeating over and over again that he needed a different credit card number to activate my account.

He didn't seem to even listen to what I was saying when I told him about the new statement and that I had been double billed again. He stated that maybe one of those charges was from the previous month. He stated that maybe somebody else in my household had started the second account. I asked him how feasible it would be for somebody to get ahold of both my credit card number and my AOL account to enable them to open this account WHICH HAS NEVER HAD ANY USAGE. He said he didn't know what could happen.

Per my credit card company's request, I got a confirmation number from him to have both charges reversed from this new statement. I spoke with Mr **** on 8-24-05 and haven't been able to use AOL since the day after that. How can I be billed for something that hasn't even been used yet? And what really bothers me is if Mr **** "took care" of the fraudulent account and changed our rate plan, how did I get the 2 charges on accounts that were closed?

If there's a class action suit, please count me in.

It is obviously unethical what AOL did because the value of each charge was different along with the toll free phone number and company name, even though the second mistake account was set up at the same time as the first account without our express permission (permission was not given because there was no password on the second account, and my husband did not enter our credit card number twice).

The second account had charge of $24.95 for "TWX*AOLforBROADBAND 08 888-889-7201 NY" with a Transaction Date on the 22nd and Post Date the 23rd of each month. If the second account was accidentally set up at the same time as the first, why was the billing amount different, and why was the billing name and phone number different? AOL knew what had happened, and took advantage of the situation I suspect, and they probably knew how to get the most money out of the situation instead of owning up to the error because they have done the same thing to other consumers.

Today is September 21, 2005 and when calling AOL Christina, ID#****@aol.com, in cancellations (my second person at AOL), she said my account had already been charged (even though the past charges had transaction dates of the 22nd, so I think that was another of AOL's tricks). She said on the first account she could credit me back the last two months of charges onto my VISA (specifically September which had not reached the official transaction date, and August). I said that is fine if I get full credit back on the second account. She said she wanted to take care of the first account "Lonny****" first, and repeatedly said she was crediting the account about 10 times waiting for some kind of official verbal confirmation. I realized she was looking for an affirmative answer from me it was okay to credit the account for legal purposes, and told her specifically, it was only okay to credit the two months back on my VISA only if she credited back all the charges on the second account. She then did the two month credit, but would not cancel the account so I could go in and see that AOL had a great no-hassle service.

When looking at the second account "Lon****" set up at the same time as the first, but with no password (and again different billing names, billing values, and post dates on my VISA card). She said she could only credit me two months. I reminded her of our agreement I would only accept two months credit on the first account if she would credit the charges in full 10 months of charges on the second account. She said she never promised anything. She then put me on hold to talk to her Manager, and came back a while later saying she could not give me a credit, not even the two months. She said I need to call my credit card company to reverse the charges. A tactic I had experienced before from a previous unbelievable experience with AOL (unused account paid on for 3 years starting in late 1997 that I closed with AOL/CompuServ in 12/02. After closing the AOL account, I was getting notices from Bank of America Consumer Risk Operations for non-payment in June'03 on a credit card closed July'02 while in the middle of refinancing my house AOL had continued to bill my cancelled credit card for my cancelled AOL account, and refuses, absolutely refused to reverse the charges.

AOL's behavior was fraudulent and unethical. It cost me a lot of time on the phone and much distress, and I am still bitter with AOL to this day over that experience.). I told her no, my credit card company would not reverse the charges, and summarized my previous bad experience with "shady" AOL. Telling me to call the credit card company is a tactic to buy time and wear me out on the issue. I also told her this was unethical. I asked her specifically, using her name Christina, you can see this account history, you can see the second account was a mistake, do you Christina agree with what AOL is doing? She said no, which actually helped me feel a little better. In the end, she credited two months on each account for September and August, which was $97.70, and she did go back to my first account and cancel it instead of leaving it open so I would not have any more duress. The second account was closed as well.

This is a condensed version of our phone call, because I hung up the phone at 7:21pm and my call to AOL started shortly after 6:00pm. I was very upset, and I was crying. My 3 year old and 4 year old were in the background upset and crying, and sometimes interrupting the call. My husband is on travel, and toward the end I specifically asked her how I could end this now because I am at high risk for a heart attack (HDL is abnormally low at count of 38), and I cannot handle what AOL was doing to me, again!

8/10/2005 8/9/2005 TWX*AOL CANCEL FEE 0805 800-827-6364 NY $150.00 is still being charged to my account.

I want to cancel since I have been unable to get an appointment to get the cable modem fixed.

I explained to the rep that I did make an attempt to see if AOL for Broadband was available for my home through their home page and it responded that it was not available for my area. The rep replied back by telling me that I should have called AOL. The entire conversation lasted over 20 minutes with him trying to convince me to stay with AOL and I repeated several times that I wanted to cancel my subscription. I informed the rep that I did not want to pay two different ISPs and wanted AOL to discontinue charging to my checking account. The rep's reply to that was its going to happen anyways. I finally gave up and hung up the phone as I realized this guy was not going to cancel my subscription.

This is NOT TRUE. He was very persistent, trying to get me to sign up for a more expensive broadband service and when I cut him off and told him that I was not interested he told me to "shut up and listen" so he could give his sales pitch, then he kept repeating the same thing over and over. Is it legal to charge me these fees without disclosing them first? I feel that I was treated very rudely and unfairly. I have been with AOL since 1995, but never again! When I finish this complaint, it will be my last session on AOL. I will not be signing on again after today.

I called aol, and simply reciecved an apology and one free month of service- which did not take place until March 2005. The cost of the overdraft was simply my problem. I was billed 24.95 February 28 (not 14.95) 2005. Then Finally April 06, 2005 I was finally billed 14.95 just to be double billed in April; for they billed me again April 27, 2005. This caused another overdraft which aol did nothing about. I called customer service. I spoke to a gentleman (Andy) which I had to plead to finally speak to a manager. I finally got a manager (Pamela I.D. # 507758. I told her of my trouble and also that my original billing date was set for the fifth of every month, and that it was changed from the beginning of all my payments to the 24rth of every month. She said they could not change it back without me seting up a whole new account with a new e-mail I.D. and everything. I said well they changed it when the final billing date was set for the 24rth of every month. She said that was not possible even though her computer showed her that the date had been changed at the beginning of my broadband service.

She said I was being double billed because the first account was never stopped. When I asked why she did nit know. I asked her to help me with something, atleast the double payments, and the payments not being changed sooner to 14.95 or one of the overdrafts or something. She yelled at me saying "We are getting no where, you are being repettative," among other things. I took a breath, and said "Don't yell at me, I am a heart patient". She said I would have to fax a copy of the overdrafts and overpayments to her in order for her to see them, even though it was on the computer screen right in fromt of her, because she repeated my billings to me. No one has helped me in the least wqith any of these matters, and in a few days it will be time for my double bill, even though I was billed (and they recieved payment) May 05, 2005 (my most recent billing). I am a very curtious, friendly person, but I need someone to help me PLEASE, this is truly unfair to me. Can someone help me??????? Thankyou, and God Bless.

Since I have cancelled I have had nothing but problems with staying connected on dial up! I have been in touch with AOL help line many many times and have not been able to solve the problem! Since then I have signed up with two new servers for a trial period and have had no problems with connection and staying on line! As soon as I find a server that meets my needs I will sign up with them and cancel my account with AOL! AOL's customer service has gone downhill considerably. I am greatly disappointed that I am having to change severs but I have no choice.

On 03/01/05, they credited my account $91.65. I asked why didn't they credit the entire amount back and a rep. by the name of Brenda said the difference of $8.34 was for the services that was rendered before I cancelled my account. She said that I would not be billed anymore because my acount was cancelled.

On 03/28/05, AOL debited my account $23.90 for the monthly fee and $3.95 for their answering service. I called them at 1-888-***-**** and asked them why did they charge me when I requested on 2/23/05 for them to cancel my services. A rep. who is named Eric claimed AOL did not have any record of my services being cancelled. He said that he would cancel the services that day but there was nothing that he could do about the bill. He even tried to offer me another AOL service plan, which was very annoying after all that they have put me through. I rejected the offer and told him to cancel my account. I called AOL back and spoke with Francis and told him that I had found the confirmation number HA801530223. He told me that I would have to call Customer Dispute at 1-877-***-****. I did not call them because I'm tired of getting the runaround with AOL.

I asked to pay (out of my pocket) to have the modem sent overnight. I was again told they only have the ability to ship 3-5 days, while talking to James. He than sent me to his supervisor, Robin, who said she would do everything she could to assist my request, and that she would call me back within 2 hours. 3-1/2hrs. later I called back. It took 45 minutes to reach shipping, as no one seemed to know that there was a shipping dept. I had to speak with 6 people, none of which knew what to do except make me repeat my problem over and over again. According to everyone there was no record of any order under the case number I was given.

After basically screaming and throwing a fit, low and behold someone realized that there was a shipping dept afterall, but said that there was no one in there by the name of Robin. And so I was transferred and asked for a manager and got Mark, badge #16231. Mark proceeded to tell me he knew all about my order and that Robin had put in a request to have my shipment done "overnight" but that it could take 72 hrs to get an approval for that. So, how can they even promise 3-5 days when they have to wait for approval before shipping anything, according to Mark. When I asked who else I could talk to, he said that he was the highest ranking person on duty.

I asked for a telephone muber to AOL Corporate and he said "there isn't one" I asked for his direct call back number and he said "there isn't one". I asked to speak with someone in consumer complaints and he said "there isn't one". When I asked when I would hear about my request and if he could call me tomorrow (meaning today 3/30/05) he said he was off and couldn't call. When I asked if that meant I had to wait until he returned he stated "yes". When I questioned that he claimed that there were others copied on my request and that someone else would call me. You and I both know that is a lie and I so much as told Mark that.

To begin with AOL switch my phoneline connection over to broadband BEFORE my modem has arrived so I'm unable to access the internet at all and have to phone them up to switch the phoneline back to a dial up connection.

Then when its time for Januarys bill they still think I'm on the dial up plan. I contact them via live help and the person assures me that it will be switched to the AOL Broadband Gold Annual on the next billing date. But come February they are still billing me on the dial up price plan. So I contact AOL via live help again and the person at the other end is unable to help me and doesnt even seem to know what I'm talking about. So I phone AOL and they too are unable to explain why their systems havent been updated. She even asks me if I'm sure I have a broadband connection! (yes I'm sure! I'm on the phone and the net at the same time and I have the confirmation email on the screen in front of me!) She says they will change the information on their systems and ensure that I'm charged the correct amount next month.

But surprise, surprise come March I'm still being charged on the wrong price plan. Three months after I sign up for broadband and its still not sorted. Only this time they are charging me 75 more than I should be paying for services which I never signed up for and have never used. I contact AOL on live help and ask them why I'm being charged more than I owe but the person at the other end doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about and (again) is unable to help me. So I contact AOL via the phone and it turns out they have put me onto the AOL Broadband Gold Annual PLUS package rather than the AOL Broadband Gold Annual package.

They are charging me 75 extra for having more than one modem and/or a dial up connection (alongside a boardband connection) - neither of which I have! The person tells me they are unable to stop the direct debit going through and that they will only issue a refund once the direct debit goes through the bank. But again no explaination of why I'm on the wrong priceplan. I'm still waiting for the refund and anticipate having to contact them again in April for charging me incorrectly.

I have been a member of AOL for approximately 5 years. I have never considered cancelling my membership even though there are many other ISP providers that charge less than the dial up connection that I have always used. None the less my attitude changed drastically last week when I contacted AOL for technical support when my modem quit working. A technical advisor told me that I was being charged for broadband and had been for quite some time. He was vague and gave me another number to call to inquire about the double billing.

A phone call with customer service verified that AOL had been charging me for over 3 years for a broadband service I never used or installed. I had ordered the modem kit over the internet when it was first offered to long beach California but returned it the very day I received it because it looked too cumbersome and difficult fore me to install. I never set the service up, only returned the package to your company. Even though your company verified they received the return package when I phoned last week, your records have shown all along that I only have received dial up service but have been charged for both this dial up and the broadband that I never used or even set up on my system. Frankly, because AOL deducted the service I used monthly from my checking account along with a service I never used (and had returned the equipment that was necessary to use this service) AOL basically stole from my account to pay for a service they knew I was not using. I received no help or satisfaction from your representatives when I phoned and found the billing and customer service people both condescending rude and no ta all sympathetic to my situation. I cancelled my membership that day.

I am informing your company via this site (because frankly you make it virtually impossible to find with any ease a personal contact that I feel will listen to my situation. I have in draft a letter to my local Long Beach paper a letter to the editor notifying my community of the unfair and basically dishonest policies of your company. I am aware that if this kind of treatment and underhandedness AOL shows in the name of good business happened to me then it more than likely widespread. I am considering filing a lawsuit in small claims court to be reimbursed for payment for service I never used and service AOL was well aware of me not having. I also have in mind a contact to our local los Angeles television news station to notify the consumer report feature of my dissatisfaction and unfair treatment by a company that advertises customer service and satisfaction while in reality steals and shows no integrity when it comes to us consumers. In closing it matters little to me AOL's spin on these kinds of complaints (60 day look back). and I am sure others would agree with me.

****@msn.com

Omar ****

So at the end of 2 years, almost $1000 later, after two days of calls to AOL, I talked to about a dozend different people about cancelling dsl. Some hung up on me, some belittled, berated and patronized me, and all tell me I get NO reimbursement. Finally I get sent to 'Andrew'. He's the decievingly helpful auto-individual with whom I'm conviced few people have the tenactity to acheive contact. He lulled me in to thinking everything will be okay, invisibly nods, and then... still he tells me I get no $ back. Eventually I got i think 2 months of credit.

Shortly thereafter, I sent two unansered letters to the company requesting a full reimpbursement and planed to file BBB and CPUC complaints, neither of which I've done yet. I don't have time for this run around but it seems only fair they shouldn't get away with it.

Well first of all they told me 3 months for $ 1 dollar and i never recived any type of letters over the mail. Then one day i see a bill for about $90.00 Dollars on my Debit card. During that time i was a High School Student working Part-time at minimum wage thats a big amout of money for me and i didnt even get a single thing from them i had to refer to a small budget for a cuple weeks, I was not able to go out or any kind of lunch food for school.

And I think this money is for broadband service-- that I explicitly REFUSED! I don't even have broadband capabilities in my home. Once I spoke with a BB rep on the phone, telling him, NO, I don't want that service. But still, I'm being charged and already threw away my records: the cancellation confirmation #, name of the rep I spoke with-- because I thought that nightmare was over.

But, it's not and I have NO IDEA how to stop them from taking money out of my account every month.

He had given me a reference number which proved to be no good when I called back to confirm my cancellation. The second time that I had called back another person kept me on the phone for another 20 minutes trying to convince me to stay with them even after I kept saying NO! I went on this website and saw all of the complaints and now I am worried that I will also incure more charges. I have never been so aggrevated.

i can't retrieve anything off the account and when i asked to speak to a supervisor i was blocked from that twice in one morning. i hate being rail roaded and aol has done exactly that. and i will not give them a credit card because when i had the account a couple of years ago they kept billing me even after i canceled the account and would not refund the account even though i proved there was no activity on the account for months. aol runs those customer service ads on tv but when it comes down to customer service they are rude and at one point i was told they could not solve my problem in three min so there was nothing they could do . i would think that after a customer has had as bad an experience as i have and been told some of the things i was told some one would like to try to make amends yet they proved exactly what one person means to them, nothing.

They also said that I was notified of this change. But of course, I was not! The first time I called, I was told that I actually had a $400 balance becuase I never paid my monthly charges since February/March. (Meanwhile, I haven't used AOL since at the time) Then the second time I called I got a run around story saying there was nothing they could do because I "agreed" to the 15 hour plan (when I never did) and that the "broadband" fee really meant a "monthly fee". I was also told that the $35 for dialup included all of the "overage charges" for the "extra hours" I went over my 15 hr limit. Again, the 15 hour limit I never knew I had! And shouldn't the monthly fee be the standard $23.90 fee that I should be billed each month? I've never seen broadband on my bill before so why is it showing up now??

They just tried using different terms to cover their own mistakes that they did not want to admit to. All in all, both conversations with the aol representatives went around in circles and I was left very unhappy. They kept placing blame on me and trying to turn the story around like they actually did me a favor or something. The woman I spoke to online kept saying "well you were only charged $14.95 instead of $23.90 since February and if you checked your statements you would see that". I haven't even used AOL until recently (aug) so they were charging me $14.95 a month since February for a service I never even used. And she also said that they sent me an email confirmation to my aol name telling me about the plan. Well if I never used the service how would I have know about that! How kind of them! In the end, I was offered a free month of service, but who would want to continue service with a company like this??!

I told her that I never authorized the company to take money out of my account and I wanted them to refund my and put the money back in my account. I explained to her that the debit that was taken out of my account made my account over draft. She told me that she could refund my only 74.99 out of the total 89.99. I told her that since I never authorized that company to recieve money from my account. I told her that my bank was going to take care of the issue for me. I was very unhappy with this company. I was very unhappy with aol. If Aol is going to let their partnering companies use their member's account information I do not want to be any part of Aol and I will advise everyone I know of the situation so it will not happen to them.

they, AOl sent a notice on my free account that they needed me to up date my billing info so i did just that on the telephone and i asked if there are any charges for me to coninue my free trial and AOL reassured me there arent any charge and for any other srv they claimed i ordered in which i never did.everytime i trust them to use my free srv i get a charge at my bak for all of the same svr's ive called to councel and continue to be charged for anyways im really sick of all the inconveinces they have costed me at my bank and myself too. please help me resolve these issues.

STEP 6: Final Review

Please review the information below and once you are satisfied, print this page for your records, and then click "Submit Complaint" at the bottom of this page. Thank you for using the BBB Online Complaint System.

Your Information

Toledo, OH 43609 US

Email: ****@sbcglobal.net

Company Information

Dulles, VA 20166

URL:

Product Information

Sales Person: 5 account reps

Complaint Information

Additional Type: Selling Practices

Contact Person: Customer Service Representative Multilpe account reps. couldn^t speak to a supervisor

The Complaint

Complaint Overview: AOL charging after cancellation, causing $100's in NSF fees.

Detailed Complaint: I'd been an AOL customer and cancelled on 5/22/04 because of switching DSL lines. I was billed 2x for $125 in June+July that caused checks to bounce and cost me $100's in NSF fees. I've spoken to AOL reps many times for multiple hours to try to resolve. Willing to credit the charges, but not the ensuing fees. I was told that somehow the account was "reactivated" and I was being charged for long distance services according to Matthew. I called the AOL fraud dept and spoke to Lynette. She informed me that the account hadn't been used since cancellation. I had her completely eradicate the account. I received my bank statements that same evening. I called many times asking for supervisors since I was getting conflicting stories from each rep, but was told "she's still busy and I don't want to waste your time, there's nothing we can do" after 15 minutes of holding. I was even told that they couldn't give out their corp. address!!! I decided to call you.

Desired Outcome: I only wish for AOL to absorb the costs of the NSF fees caused by the charges that I never should have had. They are still accruing. I've had 6 checks bounce due to this so far. I have covered them (Merchant fees and bank NSF fees).

Type of Complaint | Details of the Complaint

Please print this page for your records

Now that I've been billed $125 for June/July of 2004 I've had many NSF charges from my bank and each merchant. I only want them to reimburse because I cancelled my account 3 months prior.

We were still able to sign on through Internet Explorer. While more cumbersome than the direct link, it worked for a week. Then we lost our access to our Address Book (which further complicated sending emails). This was the last straw for us. We contacted Road Runner (our high-speed access provider) and opened an email account.

On July 2, 2004, we called AOL to officially cancel our AOL account. The AOL rep, Marc, would not comply. The best interpretation of his attitude was of harassment to make us keep the account. To avoid arguing with him, we replied to every question, "Please cancel our account." He still would not comply. We asked a dozen times to cancel and he would not do it. (He did send us an email saying how much he enjoyed talking with us).

We then wrote a cancellation letter to AOL, which was both mailed and faxed. Two weeks later we received a post card from AOL saying we had not provided all the necessary information (yes, we had). We wrote a second cancellation letter informing them that failure to cancel our account and any further harassment from them would result in our lodging a complaint. They still did not cancel our account.

When we received our American Express bill, imagine our surprise to see a charge from AOL for monthly service. On July 22, we placed a call to American Express and reached Saul, who told us many of their customers were having trouble canceling AOL. In fact, American Express had a "priority line" to AOL just to handle such problems. American Express set up a 3-way call to AOL (which was recorded by American Express). After stating who we were to "Bill" and our problem, we again were faced with repeated questions to which we repeatedly replied, "Cancel the account." We provided, over the phone, all the information they required to cancel (all of which was included in our previous letters) and they still were unwilling to comply with our request. The American Express rep finally said, "You have all the information. Give us a cancellation confirmation number." The AOL rep finally gave us the number and our account was deactivated later that day. We are hopeful that this is the end.

We have never previously encountered such blatant and harassing treatment from any business. It should not take approximately 18 verbal requests, 2 letters and an intervention by American Express to simply cancel an account. We felt it important to bring this to your attention . We urge you to take whatever action you can to hopefully keep others from encountering the problems we've had with AOL.

Ms. Catherine

I had cancelled my account and then they billed me 23.90 for AOL again. I called and they said that I had cancelled my broadband account but I would have to cancel my dial up. I explained that I only had the broadband account and the woman I spoke to, told me that they had issued a credit and it would be taken care of. It's been a couple weeks now and they still have not credited my account. I was cut off 3 times and had to explain my situation to 3 different people last time and put on hold forever. I am frustrated and am scared that I may be billed yet again this month. I simply do not have the time to sit on the phone with them and explain over and over to various people what happened.

I call the number I was given and it turns out to be the same on hold message for AOL and am stuck in the same on hold pattern once again. Finally reached a rep named "Mike Law" who when I asked for a manager said he was. I insisted that he cancel my service immediately and told him I did not wish to answer the "why are you leaving us?" question. Also told him that when I originally switched from dial-up to broadband that it was AOL that contated Time Warner cable for the installation, not myself, and that he should be able to assist me in canceling. I was finally given a cancellation confirmation number (#0149140027).

But my charge card was still being billed. Well, I had that stopped. I received a letter from AOL wanting money. Now it's gone to collection. I was billed for broadband, billed for dial-up, and heaven knows what else. My bill for AOL had never been over 30-35 dollars, then jumped to as much as 165 dollars, and so on. Considering I am at work all day, and do sleep at night, I don't know where the charges could have come from. SO I can only assume, AOL is making themselves at home with my account and charge card.

This one mistake has caused me to have severe overdrawn accounts at my bank and is continuing to do so, please be wiser than I was don't try anything for free it never works like they say it does. This one venture has cost me hundreds of dollars and is ongoing as of yet.

On top of that hours of my time fighting them.

They sent through charges to my checking acct. (I keep no extra money in my acct.) split into three different fees (broadband,check handlng fee, and fees & taxes). WHAM, I got hit by my bank for OD fees for $96.00(3 X $32.00) Called and went on-line to AOL many documented times to resolve this issue. Told they would credit my acct. and reverse bank charges within five days. WHAM, I got hit again with the three seperate charges again (I AM NOW OUT $192.00). Again I E-mailed and called many times to get resolved, BUT NOOOOO!I went to the "BBB" web site and got the name of Ms. Heidi **** who is supposedly billing operations/service, and Mr. Pat **** VP,Product development.

When I asked to talk to one of these persons I was told to call their toll free line. Yeah, right. called and E-mailed several (MANY???) more times and was told Heidi could not be contacted and would not do anything for me anyway. Was treated VERY rudely and never got anywhere with NOAH (Cust. serv. rep?) on 11/22/03. This story still is only half over, but I am trying to keep ths short (many details ommitted) Finally got service disconnected Dec.25th,swithed service, paid the final $29.96 in March, AND WE JUST GOT A BILL FROM A COLLECTION AGENCY FOR ANOTHER $17.00+ FOR AOL. YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE "AOL".(ALWAYS OWE LIFETIME)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three months later they charged me for $90 some dollars for a years worth of service. I called them up. She apologized all over the place and said that my information would be mailed out immediately!!!! So, It never came and now it has been 5 months and I think my ninety dollars is gone. I will not ever take another phone call from anything like this again. When I signed up for aolvoicemail I had no problem so I think that this AOL ADVANTAGE WAS A SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dell forwarded my CC number to AOL who began charging the card monthly. I was charged for 10 months before I noticed I was being billed for a dial-up account in addition to my broadband account.

I have lost over $400 in NSF and other fees that they have taken out of my account from AOL. They keep debiting my account. They will debit my account twice in a day every other day for weeks. This has cause me a great strain due to that was my money to pay my rent. I had to go and run to my account at one in the morning to take out what is left in my account from my direct deposit.

using my bank account number with out authorization is very discomforting. my budget is limited and having them take money from my account with out notice messes with my living expences. my husband is in the military and our budget is fixed. 9.00 is gas money for a week for us.

Larry ****

At that time I asked to cancel any future charges, and I understood things, I would not be charged. Yet, in the first week of March, although the February charge had been refunded, I was charged $ 24.95 for TWX*AOLFORBROADBAND as well as AOL Auto Advantage for $9.95. No matter what you do it seems, somehow you get charged. Whatever the AOL rationalizations about cancellation procedure, small print legalese, etc., this seems outright dishonest. They simply have got my bank account number and charge me whenever they like. I have already written a letter of formal complaint to my Bank in Concordia, Missouri. But I am very distraught and the AOL "withdrawals" has also cost us way over $ 100.00 in "Insufficient Funds" charges, since in several cases they were made when we were already somewhat overdrawn.

All in all it has been something of a nightmare, and it seems impossible either by letter or phone to get them to stop or reimburse the unauthorized withdrawals. Can you all help ? We are hurting in Missouri.

On February 17, 2004 I noticed a charge on my debit card for $246.12. I called my bank and was told that it was made by: TWX*AOL DIAL-UP with a telephone number of 1-888-849-3200. My account balance was overdrawn as there was also a pending debit for $293.60 from TWX*AOL DIAL-UP and another for $14.95 from TWX*AOL BROADBAND. When I called on 2/17/04 I was told that the excess charges were from dial-up usage. I was told that I was on a plan for 5 hours of free dial-up service and that I had gone over that at $2.95 an hour. I was never told any of these details when I called about the service. I never received an email detailing that I would be charged for dial-up service.

I was told that I used hundreds of hours of dial-up under one of my account names (not the master account) and that there was a pop-up window that I should have noticed that said that I was being billed for the time. I was not the one who used the dial-up although I'm the person with the master account and I was never notified of the charges. They were just billed to my checking account. I called the number on my bank statement for AOL immediately and was given the runaround for two hours. I was told that I was read a disclaimer when I signed up for the service that stated the charges. They refused to provide proof. I was also told that I was sent an email stating the charges. When I said that I was never sent such an email and asked them to resend it they refused. I have another account with AOL that I received free recently when I purchased a new computer from CompUSA. I tried to cancel that account today and was given the same runaround. Instead of letting me cancel it they wanted to sign me up on the $14.95 a month plan. I accepted because I wanted to prove that they would not tell me about the hidden dial-up fees. THEY DID NOT. I received emails at that account afterwards and there was NO statement pertaining to the dial up charges. This is really the same thing that phone companies do when they slam phone bills with hidden fees.

I have filed a claim of unauthorized transaction with my bank (Commerce Bank) as of today (2/18/04.)

i am without any money, at least 5 bounced check fees, and tons of run around. i have to send letter and make tons of calls and just hope this get resolved. when are they going to be made to stop this scam and stealing from their trusting customers????aren't there laws about this???? i am 13 hours away from home, in college, 21 years old, broke, and -999.in my checking account because they saw fit to pull $1351. out of my checking account without my knowledge and my consent.

i am out 120 bucks. I called bank and cancelled debit card number and got a new one so no more withdrawals can be made, however i am livid and would like to know how these folks get away with it. I filed a fraud claim with bank of america and they will look into it for me monday....meanwhile i am overdrafted, stressed, and seriously disturbed about aol and its partnerships with shady companies.

I was charged twice every month $34.95 for AOL DSL and $23.95 for AOL. When my hard drive recently crashed and I upgraded to Windows XP my AOL provided modem was inoperable. When I requested a new modem, I was advised that I had not returned a previously shipped modem (which I dispute) and therefore would need to pay $100 for an upgraded replacement modem. Alternatively, it was suggested that I return the useless modem and then upon their receipt of same, a replacement would be forthcoming. I opted to cancel my service and I am still paying the price in aggravation.

I had been a customer since 1994 and this was the treatment I received for my loyalness. Hmphh....I think they ripped me off and then called me a liar. I can't imagine how much I've overpaid that company by now!

$33.65 applied to my Visa and no credit after returning. I now fear ordering ANYTHING more thru the internet. This severely limits my selection of purchases and compromises my ability to get the best price for the product.

Also, I upgraded to the 9.0 Optimized offered by AOL and am charged an extra fee each month. When I upgraded it was never mentioned of an extra fee to be charged each month. This fee should have been mentioned in the very beginning for there to have been a decision made by the consumer as to the extra money spent each month. As I can tell with the 9.0 Optimized my services are slower than with the 8.0. I can tell no difference between the two services. Their prices are much higher than the bids I have received from others at this time. I will continue to compare prices for services with another provider before my final decision is made. But you can rest assured that in the very near furture I will drop my services with AOL as I am not satisfied with AOL's services or procedures.

I am very dissatisfied with AOL at this point in time and will never order from them again.

We were met immediately with rude comments, a large arguement, and even personally insulted and threatened with charges after attempting to cancel the account. The customer service rep (I cannot give the rep name as my grandmother handled the call, I merely advised her and listened in in the background) finally agreed to cancel the account after a large shouting match.

Then we recieved a letter in the mail addressed simply to "AOL member" saying that we had resubscribed to the service. This is entirely untrue, because I uninstalled any traces of AOL. We called back and were again met with defiance and horribly rude comments. Then after about twenty minutes of entirely pointless arguing, we were told that the account had not been reactivated to begin with, and that the letter was sent in error. Yet we were still charged as if we had.

If we are billed again, I'm going to record the conversation and consult a lawyer, because what AOL is doing is absolutely wrong.

these charges have more than a few times made me get nsf from my bank for not having enough in my account when aol / auto advantage and the other aol company tried to debit it. i live pay check to pay check and my balance is always very low these 9.00 and 8.00 charges have caused me about 300.00 in nsf check charges only!! then because my bank charges me those fee's i fall behind because i wasnt aware of a 9.00 and 8.00 charge coming out! that wound up costing me over 300.00 that was caused by aol underhanding selling and sharing private information with other companys!!

Christina *.

I explained to him that Aol need to teach the reps top stop at some point why do they have to harrasse the customers until they demand to speak to a supervisor to cancel. he just blatently laughed into the phone and said we never stop. and then he proceeded to go int a sales pitch as well. I could no longer continue the call as he was advising me how it would behoove me to keep aol. I advised him I would be filing a complaint. The practice of harrassement must be put to an end. I wish to be perminantly removed from their mailing lists and calling lists