Consumerist

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AOL

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WalletPop

AOL Repackages Personal Finance Content, Names It WalletPop

AOL just launched a personal finance website called WalletPop. It's a combination of news feeds, blog entries, and a ton of calculators (which I just bookmarked in my "tools" folder). Mashable seems to like it—they write that digging through the content can be confusing, but there are some "nifty services such as deal finders and tax forms." ArsTechnica is underwhelmed:

Apart from the quite adequate assortment of calculators, it's all a big heap of plain-Jane articles slotted into categories by simple tags.

...maybe you're better off thinking of it as a fat news feed, packed with ads and a layout that can get tiresome for long articles.

4:14 PM on Wed Jul 16 2008
By Chris Walters
1,199 views, 6 comments

Latest by N/A: actually while i am not into its brown and orange (blech), the site looks really interesting. ton of stuff on it. more »

A man who spammed 1.2 million AOL customers was sentenced to 30 months in prison yesterday. Now how will we ever find out how to make bigger p3nz? Oh wait, here comes another spam... [CNN Money]

3 comments

aol

AOL Just Wants To Be Left Alone

Please just leave AOL alone! AOL is raising their dial-up internet access prices by $2 for everyone who refuses to promise not to call technical support. More »

5:57 PM on Wed Jul 2 2008
By Meg Marco
9,701 views, 69 comments

bad customer service

AOL Tops MSN Money's Customer Service Hall Of Shame

Earlier this week, MSN Money published the results of a national Zogby poll they commissioned on who delivers the worst customer service. The winner was AOL, ranked "poor" by 47% of respondents, while Comcast came in second with 42% suckage. Sprint ranked third at 39%.

"We've seen a fall in customer service as we've gone into a recession," says a customer service consultant in the article. "As the cost cutting occurs . . . they start to cut the wrong things." But that implies that AOL had good customer service before the recession, doesn't it? Wait, what?

More »

5:39 PM on Fri May 30 2008
By Chris Walters
3,120 views, 25 comments

Latest by bleh: Comcast is a "victim of its own success?" There is nothing successful about the way they treat their customers. more »

how to

Quit AOL Using Highlighters

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.

11:50 AM on Thu Apr 24 2008
By Ben Popken
3,434 views, 14 comments

Latest by N/A: ChuckECheese: You can cancel your free account at KW: Cancel (through the AOL client) or at cancel.aol.com. Just click the more »

shady

Azureus: Other ISPs May Also Be Throttling BitTorrent

Azureus has released data that suggests that Comcast may not be the only ISP throttling BitTorrent, says TorrentFreak:
A few months ago Azureus petitioned the FCC, which led to a FCC hearing in February. One of the complaints from the commission was that there is little data available on the scope of BitTorrent throttling, a gap Azureus now tries to fill by collecting data on the prevalence of TCP-resets among ISPs worldwide.
More »

10:49 AM on Tue Apr 22 2008
By Meg Marco
3,444 views, 25 comments

Latest by mattbrown: I can't believe this is a revelation. I've been using roadrunner for over five years. And every single more »

leaks

Exclusive: AOL's Collections Guide Encourages Agents To Lie And Deceive

An anonymous tipster sent us AOL's 153 page internal collections guidebook for prying money out of delinquent account holders. The guide shows that AOL is following some of the debt industry's most egregious collection tactics by encouraging agents to deceive and lie to customers. After the jump we present AOL's scare tactics, tricks to negotiating a substantial discount, and the full collections guide. More »

6:00 PM on Sat Apr 5 2008
By Carey
12,711 views, 63 comments

Latest by WraithSama: @KD17: The writing's on the wall for AOL and NetZero. Neither have the ability to provide broadband access, only dial-up. more »

lawsuits

Apple, AT&T, Sued Over Visual Voicemail

A firm called Klausner Technologies has just announced that they are suing both Apple and AT&T for patent infringement over the iPhone's "visual voicemail" feature. Klausner Technologies has already sued VOIP provider Vonage and AOL/Time Warner for the same darn thing, and both companies chose to settle and license the technology from Klausner. More »

4:28 PM on Mon Dec 3 2007
By Meg Marco
2,049 views, 23 comments

Latest by N/A: According to google patent search: Patent number: 4,117,542Filing date: Jul 7, 1977Issue date: Sep 26, 1978 This patent is almost 30 years more »

AOL's new "ad based" plan is just not working. Boohoo. [NYT]

4 comments

AOL is STILL trying to extort money from people who canceled their account. STILL STILL STILL. [KUTV]

10 comments

class action suits

9th Circuit Court Says Companies Can't Change Contract Terms Simply By Posting Changes On A Website

Parties to a contract have no obligation to check the terms on a periodic basis to learn whether they have been changed by the other side. Indeed, a party can't unilaterally change the terms of a contract; it must obtain the other party's consent before doing so....

...Nor would a party know when to check the website for possible changes to the contract terms without being notified that the contract has been changed and how. Douglas would have had to check the contract every day for possible changes. Without notice, an examination would be fairly cumbersome, as Douglas would have had to compare every word of the posted contract with his existing contract in order to detect whether it had changed.

- Ninth Circuit Court ruling (PDF) that that Talk America couldn't just post contract changes on its company website and compel customer acceptance without otherwise notifying customers.

[via CL&P Blog]

8:51 PM on Wed Jul 25 2007
By Ben Popken
4,081 views, 26 comments

Latest by kc-guy: @Consumer-X The last time my Discover card made changes to the credit card agreement, it gave me the "option" to close more »

cancel the account

Not Canceling The Account Costs AOL $3 Million

AOL has avoided what was certain to be an entertaining court battle by settling with 48 states and the District of Colombia over allegations that it made it, uh, difficult to cancel for the many customers who were fleeing to broadband. More »

8:38 PM on Wed Jul 11 2007
By Meg Marco
5,376 views, 21 comments

vincent ferrari

Happy Birthday To Cancel The Account!

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Vincent Ferrari's famous "Cancel The Account" recording of his attempt to cancel AOL. More »

7:00 PM on Tue Jun 12 2007
By Ben Popken
2,370 views, 13 comments

copycatting

Gee Whiz, The New AOL Beta Looks Familiar

Where have we seen this website before? —MEGHANN MARCO More »
aol

Some Of Our Favoritest AOL Posts

This new batch of AOL confessions got us all misty. Here's a walk down memory lane. More »

9:54 PM on Thu Apr 19 2007
By Ben Popken
1,004 views, 6 comments

aol

AOL Made Reps Give Out One Piece Of Tech Support At A Time, Making Customers Call Back Again And Again, And Get Upsold Every Time

A former AOL tech support rep confesses one of the worst parts about his job. AOL had a policy called "One Call/One Resolution" which basically meant that they were only supposed to dole out ONE troubleshooting step when you called. Then they were supposed to pass you off to someone who tried to upsell you to DSL or some video computer courses. The result was that customers had to call in call in call in, just to get the most basic problem solved. More »

9:29 PM on Thu Apr 19 2007
By Ben Popken
2,678 views, 13 comments

Latest by N/A: My Wife worked at AOL in Tucson before they shut it down. She hated it. She used to tell me more »

aol

AOL Already Planning To Go Free Well Before Vincent Ferrari Came Along

This gut-spilling from a former AOL employee helps confirm what we suspected all along: While it definitely spurred them to action, AOL already had the plan to switch over to a free, browser-based, ad supported system well in hand before Vincent's call blew up. More »

8:53 PM on Thu Apr 19 2007
By Ben Popken
2,266 views, 2 comments

Latest by SpyMaster: Hmmmmmmmm...did anyone think the big change at AOL was actually caused by that phone call???? Really??????? Come on...they more »

aol

AOL Changed Policy On Customers Recording Calls 10 Days After Vincent Ferrari Uploaded His

Vincent Ferrari uploaded his famous AOL cancellation call on June 13th, 2006. A screenshot from AOL's internal database shows that 10 days later AOL revised its policy for what reps should do if a customer says they're recording the phone call. More »

7:52 PM on Thu Apr 19 2007
By Ben Popken
4,618 views, 39 comments

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