Before I start my Rant…let me just say that I hope you all had or are having a GREAT Christmakah (Christmas/Hanukah)!

On to the Rant:

On Christmas Eve day…I was looking at my online banking statement and I happened to see a charge saying:

I thought to myself, "Gee, I cancelled my AOL about a YEAR ago…what’s this charge about? It must be a mistake…or perhaps someone has used my credit card to pay their AOL bill." And so…my 1st step was to call my credit card company and tell them to make sure this charge does not go through(they were very helpful). My next step was to call AOL.

Before I start ripping into AOL, let me just say that I was an AOL member for YEARS. Back in the day when they charged by the minute and some of my monthly AOL bills averaged about $200.00! I didn’t like the price but I did find it pretty easy to use. Also, since I had been a member for so long, I was able to have a bunch of screen names without #’s. Hell, I even had my old band’s name(Moisture@aol.com) those of you on AOL now know how hard it is to get a screen name without it being spelled like "M0isTure2006too". Anyway, you get the idea…part of me did not want to give up these screen names since they were very easy to remember.

Well, last year, I realized that it had been months since I had even used AOL services since I was using my own domain name’s email address and free instant messengers so I called AOL to CANCEL my account. What happened during this phone call felt like I was stuck on the phone with a Used Car Salesman who just would not take no for an answer. I stayed strong though and stayed with my "please cancel my account, I do not wish you use your services(or be charged for them)"

"We’re really sorry to see you go Mr. Gentry…I can see here you’ve been a member for such a long time, is there any reason you wish you leave?"

"Well…as I already said to you 4 times…I DO NOT USE YOUR SERVICES ANY MORE and no I do not want the free 3 months you’re offering to try to get me to stay…I won’t use it…is that not reason enough? If you really need another reason, my account has been hacked into at least 5 times during my membership but that’s beside the point."

I realized this person was only trying to do their job by keeping me as a customer but I do remember canceling my account being SUCH A HASSLE. Now…about my latest call to AOL asking about the charge…

As it would turn out…MY ACCOUNT WAS NEVER CANCELED and I’ve been charged for the last 12 months. I asked for a refund for the last year and they said some bullshit excuse of they’re only allowed to return 2/3 months of money stolen from me. AOL billing people can easily look into the account and see that there was no activity for over the last year so that should have been proof enough. They even told me they had it ON RECORD that I called them on January 10th of last year to "try to cancel". By this point in the call, I was bursting blood vessels but trying to stay calm[not easy].

I could see that I was just wasting my breath on the person I was talking to so I asked to speak with his boss. His boss got on the phone and gave me the same speech about how they would not be able to return the money they STOLE from me. And then the guy had the nerve to blame ME for not catching this sooner on my statements….of which my reply was:

"yes, I should have seen this sooner but smaller charges like this don’t usually stand out…that being said…what you’re telling me is if someone were to steal my credit card and buy a car with it and I didn’t notice it, it’s MY FAULT and I would still have to pay for it?"

Yes, I should have noticed it sooner but it slipped through and it was my mistake not seeing it but that doesn’t mean I should have to pay for something I don’t use and I canceled over a year ago. I asked the manager for his name and then asked if I could talk to his boss and he refused to transfer me to anyone else by saying something to the effect like there is no one higher than him. Apparently Todd Jordan, the manager over at AOL is as high as you can get on the phone? He basically dismissed me, telling me that he’s just going to refund only 2 months worth of AOL charges and gave me my cancellation number 765077164. And then they threw me to a pre-recorded voice message saying how "I agree to be charged for blah blah blah and if i don’t agree to press 1" I pressed 0 and got looped back into a fresh person who had no clue what I was talking about so I just hung up.

I don’t like the fact that they refused to cancel my account and charged me …but it’s not even about the amount of money. It’s the level of SLIME I had to deal with. Looking into my account, they could have easily seen that over the years with them, I’d spent well over 5 grand just for internet services and they could have easily returned the small amount that they stole from me. I have a feeling I won’t see a cent more from them…but at the very least I can write my story to maybe prevent someone else from being charged from them if they ever try to cancel their services. Yes, I’m still angry and even less happy that I ended up stewing over it on for a few hours on Christmas Eve.

Today, I did a web search and I found that there was a class action Lawsuit Filed in Ohio from Attorney General Jim Petro in 2003:

“Consumers should be able to cancel an agreement with a business within contractual terms and have the comfort of knowing the business will honor that cancellation,” said Attorney General Jim Petro.

In the last two years, Attorney General Jim Petro’s Consumer Protection Section has received over 250 complaints about the companies. The office filed a four-count complaint including the following charges:
COUNT ONE - Failure to honor cancellation requests
COUNT TWO - Unauthorized charges
COUNT THREE - Exclusions and limitations in advertising
COUNT FOUR - Violations of the terms of an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance

I called Jim Petro’s office and left a message to see how this ended up and then sent links in regard to this to my lawyer to see if anything has been filed in California…waiting to hear back.

I’m not writing this to SLAM AOL or the people who still use their services…Mainly, I’m hoping to warn others to be careful if you ever try to cancel …to make sure you’re not being charged like I was. I’m also writing this to keep a record of what happened so I don’t forget and to rant while it’s still fresh in my head. But enough on my AOL ranting… here’s a link I found informative and comforting to know that I was not the only person being ripped off by AOL.

http://www.heferito.com/aohell-testimonials.asp <<<interesting stuff.