It looks like AOL is up to its old shenanigans and is still making hard for some people to cancel service (yes there are still some people using AOL), but reader Richard figured out a way to finally get through to them, with a highlighter. He writes:
I could not find a way to contact AOL to stop my service. So I took a yellow marker, drew a line though that line item on my credit card bill, and wrote on the bill….”Do not pay, account in dispute”. I paid all the other items on the CC bill that month. It took AOL about 2 weeks to call me…..I told them what I thought of their service, and instructed them to terminate my account, while I was still on the phone. It worked. They seem to understand when you tell them you are not going to pay.
That’s one way to go about it. You could also call up your credit card company and request a chargeback, but this has the added benefit of zero hold time. First rebates, now AOL cancellations, this highlighter is starting to look mighty potent.
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You could also change your plan to the free access kind. I can’t remember what it’s called but it’s like the bring your own service plan where you can’t dial in but you can still login with another isp and keep your aol email account.
Richard,
I’m delighted that you were able to stop AOL’s billings, but I am confused! When you pay a credit card bill, normally you return the payment slip only.
You’re saying that you returned the statement portion, that lists the AOL charge with a highlight and a hand-written note? This area lists payments that have already been made and debited to your credit card balance.
So even though every credit card company has a rigid procedure for disputes and chargebacks (typically you call, they send you a form, you complete, sign and mail in, then they issue a provision credit, pending investigation) which you didn’t follow, your credit card company chargedback AOL anyhow?
Exactly what credit card company is this?
Sword < Pen < Hi-Liter
@pmathews: What you describe is the “AOL will not remove your account no matter what account.” Your old AOL account is retained as a free email (and AIM) account, ready for you to access at any time. I haven’t had AOL in over 6 years, and I’ve sent letters (return receipt) asking them to cancel my old account, but it’s still there, still receiving mail (it’s a sort of spam-time capsule from 2001), and, if you boot up AIM, all your contacts, even the ones you deleted in 1999, suddenly reappear like an Akashic nightmare.
In other news, at the coffee shop last night, there was this guy with a smokin’ notebook computer and an iPhone… and an AOL account. You could hear the “You’ve got mail!” shouting across the room.
@ChuckECheese: Unless he was using a modified Thunderbird with “You’ve Got Mail!” loaded as a wav file. I’ve got “
“>Mail, Mother Fucker!” as mine.
@Papa Midnight: Last one failed to show link:
I disputed my AOL charge (billed on my credit card) after cancelling. Exactly one year later, AOL’s collection agency came after me for $23.50, intending to add
collection fees and report it to the credit agencies, so I paid.
IT’S NOT OVER FOR YOU !
AOL software invades/slows all your programs like a virous….it took a long massive clean-up to fix my PC.
Interesting. I just went to keyword “Billing” and selected the free option. Not sure why that’s so difficult, but I guess he IS an AOL user after all.
(DISCLAIMER: TJ has been using the internet since before the www existed and BBS were pretty much the only thing going. Do not mock TJ for his AOL usage/hacking)
I agree with SkokieGuy.. i don’t understand what the OP is talking about. You don’t send in your bill when paying by mail, and they aren’t likely to look at it even if you do.
Is this some sort of odd way to do a chargeback?
There is a special sort of chargeback where it is communicated as “Customer Cancelled” versus the regular sort of stolen-card or fraudulent charge kind.
At least there was at BoA when I had this issue with a company that simply couldn’t seem to stop charging my debit card even after I sent them the associated purchase numbers multiple times.
@Papa Midnight: I’ve always like the arrow zing followed by “Message for you, sire” from the Holy Grail.
Why not just straight up dispute the charge with the credit card company? Is that not something all CCs do?
I wouldn’t have thought sending anything with your bill besides a check gets noticed. I figured either the letter opening robots a la Mom’s Friendly Robot Company or the Morlocks, whichever are in employ, aren’t trained to bother with such things.
You keep your AOL account for two reasons:
1. You have technophobe family members that seize up in horror, when you try to show them how Outlook or Thunderbird works. They can only deal with AOL’s simple interface.
2. When you take a vacation to the Smoky Mountains, and there’s no cell signal, no local channels, no broadband… All you’ve got is a no long-distance landline, trees, and lots of vertical ground and bottomless ravines. That AOL dial-up is your only connection to the outside world…
It’s definitely worth setting Thunderbird up to get your AOL mail. I’ve never been able to send AOL mail through AOL’s smpt protocol, but you can send it out through your ISP’s mail server, and it still appears to be coming from an AOL account. And best of all, it loses the nasty spam hyperlink AOL’s putting in the bottom of all sent mails!
ChuckECheese: You can cancel your free account at KW: Cancel (through the AOL client) or at cancel.aol.com. Just click the How do I cancel my free member account? FAQ.