[firefighter81]

This is a long story, I'll give the short version though. I cancelled my AOL dialup account before I went into the military all the way back in August of last year. I went to basic training and tech school, finish up, arrive here in Italy. Somehow I missed that AOL is still charging me $23.90 a month, over a year later!

Normally I would just call billing and get it cancelled and get my money back, however my Italian calling card will not dial 1-800 or 1-888 numbers, also it cuts off when someone tries to transfer me to another line. It's really pissing me off, and the fact that AOL has taken almost $250 of my hard earned money while I'm overseas just gets to me.

Does anyone have a direct line to the billing department that isn't a toll free number? Or any other way to contact them? I've been e-mailing them for the last 2 days, and I get no response, I do the online tech support on their site, that's a joke, they just keep telling me to dial the 1-800 number. I sent a third VERY angry but still civil e-mail to AOL today, demanding they call me within 24hours. Hopefully I can get something worked out. But instead of waiting on them I figure I'll be proactive and try to get it done myself, can anyone offer me assistance? Even advice or something, but preferably a phone number.

Thanks,
Jason

 

[UP VFR]

do your parents or friends know an attorney that would make the call for you..i think that would be the best way to do it

 

[nig]

PM'd you. Good luck.

 

[RayOSV]

Don't have a phone number for you, but be prepared for a battle. AOL is notorious for not wanting to cancel accounts, ever. A business associate of mine died in October of last year and her email accounts are sitll active after numerous calls to AOL.

It seems that their customer support reps (or whatever they call them) are trained not to understand the concept of cancel. I've heard all sorts of horror stories about it taking FOREVER and still having a hassle over the bill. I hope you have something in writing that documents when you first cancelled. Good luck.

 

[firefighter81]

Nothing in writing, I was leaving for basic training, I didn't have time to do that. If it comes down to it I will get the base legal office to help me out. If AOL won't listen to me, I think they will listen to military attorneys.

 

[wescoas1]

I had a similar situation once, but it was related to flawed software in AOL 1.0 or whatever it was so I got my money back without trouble.

 

[Doraf]

In 1993 My mother got AOL. Was basically the only internet service back then. About two years later she went to a local ISP and called AOL to cancel her account. She would call them almost every month for 5 years trying to cancel and sit on hold for almost a hour at a time and the CS would be really nice and apolagize and then the next month she would be billed again. In 1999 she called me up and said, "AOL has finally stopped billing my account." The date on her credit card has expired so they couldn't bill her anymore.

Your best bet is to call your bank or credit card company and expalin the issue to them and file a claim against AOL. Your bank will reverse the charge that AOL took from your account and block AOL from billing you ever again. Then the bank will go after AOL for the $250. I had to do this once for some fitness center that billed me for 6 months after I canceled my mebership and recently for some random credit card company in PA. that billed my bank account for $199 for some sign up fee. We never could figure out how they got my information, but the bank said they had done this to a few other people had all kinds of complaints with the BBB and the CEO of the company was in federal prison for 18 months for credit card fraud.

 

[QuiksilverF4i]

I recently cancelled AOL after 6 months of trying. Every time I would call to cancel they would give me free months. So when that was up They would start billing me again. Finally I said screw it, when they offered more free time I told them no more BS sales pitches cancel it, they did..

 

[madkat]

the aol support center is near my mom's house so i knew a lot of people that work there and they would tell me all the stuff they did to not cancel accounts. its pretty messed up

 

[firefighter81]

Thanks for all of the advice. This isn't a simple misunderstanding, I told them CANCEL MY ACCOUNT because I am going into the military, they tried to get me to stay on and do free months and blah blah blah, but I said NO, CANCEL MY ACCOUNT. The reply was "Yes sir Mr. Garrett, we are sorry to be losing your buisness but we do thank you for serving the country" after that response I thought there would be no problems, but here we are, 10 months later still being billed.