Just Cancel the @#%$* Account!

R

Rich Tate

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 9, 2005
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We have all been through the difficulty of attempting to cancel an account to an online service. Some are very easy, while others are nearly impossible. In this article, the author signs up for a whopping 32 accounts, just to see which category each falls into.

I subscribed to the services beginning last July, and I canceled--or tried to cancel--them all between August and October. Afterward, I considered several factors in assessing how hard it was to cancel each service and to receive any promised trial-period refunds. For example, I downgraded companies that failed to provide a way to unsubscribe through their Web sites. I also dinged merchants when they continued to bill me after I had canceled, and if they made me feel like a Net gumshoe searching their Web site for clues on how to unsubscribe.
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Thanks for the link. It was a great article. I am just going through a similar hassle with Pro Gamer Hosting (Ventrilo server). I canceled the service at the beginning of October and received a cancelation confirmation but they never cut the service and continued to bill me. All the contact e-mails on their site got returned and my trouble ticket was ignored. I got billed again (double charged) in December and only got action when my trouble ticket said that I was going to go to the BBB and my credit card about the "nearly criminal" appearances of their actions. I got a response withing 2 hours when I did that. I am still waiting for the refunds to show on my CC and hope the threat was sufficient to get my money back.

I have also had similar issues to the author with AOL.
 
I had a similar experience with my mom's AOL account waaay back in the day...early 90's sometime. 15 years later and AOL is still pulling the same old scam. That's why I say, "Friends don't let friends use AOL."
 
Who the hell uses AOL anyway? Poor people? AOL is absolutely shit and always has been.
 
SpeedRunner said:
Who the hell uses AOL anyway? Poor people? AOL is absolutely shit and always has been.
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People who receive a free CD in the mail or bundled software on a new OEM and don't know much about AOL?

This is a problem for all online users, not just enthusiasts who tend to research.

I understand, yes even Joe Smith first time OEM buyer should check it out first and read up, but the problem is that you can't even try the service and cancel it without an extreme hassle.
 
On the flip side, I had a CS course a few years back, and the teacher was proud of the fact that he had AOL, and hadn't paid for it for years. He always used those free month CD's - sign up, use the account, cancel before charges ad nauseum. Why do they keep pulling the same bullshit after at least 2 class actions? Simple - they make more money keeping the status quo, and paying off the occasional lawsuit than actually being ethical and transparent.

Personal experience (re: Reservation Rewards)...I ordered some crap online from a Brylane Home (housewares of Lane Bryant ack! I wanted to kick my neighbors fat twat after all this :p but I digress). Anyway, I went though all their crap (an RMA/reorder as well), and after the sale they sent me an email - one of those get a $10 off coupon on your next order by signing up I was like ok fine.. At no point did they (brylane or RR) provide in CLEAR terms that they would charge me ($10/month iirc), nor did I ever GIVE THEM MY CARD INFO EXPLICITLY. Bottom line, Brylane piggybacked my debit info to Reservation Rewards without my knowledge.

Now being that this particular card is one I hardly ever use, mainly for my net purchases I didn't pay attention - I hardly ever checked my bank statements. Late last year I actually check one to find out my account has a ~ (negative) $28 balance. These fuckers had been charging me, unbenownst to me. Call the bank to get he charge (and overdraft reversed), they tell me to deal w/ the company. I'm not really wanting to since I never (knowingly) authorized them anyway - read enough of these type of scummy practices on 'fraud' sites. Anyway, I do end up calling RR, and to their credit theire CS rep did cancel my 'subscription' without hassle, and agree to refund my money..Then a light went off (finally! :p) and I decided that since I hadn't checked my statements in a while, lets go back some more. I ended up being charged for the past 4 (or more) months, and after calling them again they also agreed to refund the other charges..The bank then agreed to refund the o/d fee as well. Within about a week, my account was credited and (w/ no other activity) no longer in the red.

Long story short, I'd been charged $40+ (RR), and a $25 overdraft fee (WAMU), a couple hours of hassle and bullshit (online and phone) for something I wasn't fully apprised of. These kinds of things are really scummy in my book, and to top it off I get 3-4 Brylane and related catalogs in the mail regularly, and I don't really see ordering from them ever again thanks to this. All over a friggin' set of damned mixing bowls that cost all of about $20 (my moms got a thing for periwinkle blue and its hard to find that type of stuff). Sorry this went so long, but even now the whole situation infuriates me - I just wanted to let people be aware if they ever have dealing w/ Brylane (or related companies)..And to stay the hell AWAY from anything to do w/ Reservation Rewards!

/damn maybe I need to lay off the coffee..
 
A Shame he didn't try a genmay subscription.

It's easy to cancel. Just P.O. Lethal, Kyle or MD. :D
 
SpeedRunner said:
Who the hell uses AOL anyway? Poor people? AOL is absolutely shit and always has been.
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So you wonder who uses or used AOL, Well I did back in 1997. I had 2 choices back then, Compuserv and AOL. Compuserv was charging alot for dialup, AOL was a small price to pay and they constantly send those cd's that you could have added extra time to your account.

Back then I didn't know what a hard drive was, I was like quite a few people back then. Trying to find cheapest dialup and didn't know anything about computers.

Little did I know in about the second or third revision of the AOL service, we realized it sucked. We decided it was best at that time to switch to Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown, faster service and better priced too. Trying to uninstall AOL was a nightmare, it installed an AOL Dialer service, and 4 other items you couldn't remove w/o a full format reload. Thank goodness at that time, I had a warranty with Gateway 2000 to have them fix my computer.

It took a good 3 weeks to try to Convince AOL to cancel my subsription, till then after I kept recieving those free cd's to switch back. Move forward to 2004 we were chatting with a Cousin in Taiwan, she used Yahoo for her email and I still used zoomtown. Well we get this email or warning from AOl spam abuse center, that she has been spamming the internet with worthless email. I wasn't so sure to believe it, my cousin know enough to email and turn on the computer much less know what spam email is.

We printed out the 3 emails that AOL abuse center mailed to her to discontinue use of spamming or face her acount being canceled. I did a whois search by the .com, .org and other sites on the printout from AOL, guess what it came back to AOL using false sites to spam. So what happened to my Cousin's email, because of the threats by AOL, the yahoo account was canceled. She tried again with another service, same Aol threats, and another canceled account. I realized that 25% of the spam over there comes from AOL. I even tried to email back to her new account, and I get this notice from aol that my email is blocked by aol spam abuse center.

I hate AOL with a sure passion, and will never go back to them ever!
 
Great article. Companies that practice this kind of crap should be recognized publicly and repeatedly. This article is a good step.

Some of these weren't suprising. I've hated anything to do with 'Real' for a long, long time--even if it's a different company than Real Networks, name recognition on this is going to kill any business from me.

Classmates.com has been a thorn in my side ever since someone signed up using my e-mail address. It took months just to get them to stop sending me mail, then they started up again later and I had to go through the process again.

Anything that comes with a link in a Windows 98SE install is on my list of companies not to use. MSN, AOL and whoever else comes preinstalled. I've seen AOL software on recipe CDs for god's sake.

The absolute worst wasn't an online thing but was DirecTV. Cancelling their service started off with them trying to give me the hard sell and ended up with me grilling them for an hour about all the crap they pulled on me over the past year. Then they kept calling, wanting my business back. I asked them several times not to call me and then started getting nasty to their reps--I hate to do that but they simply won't stop calling so hopefully I'm at least inducing higher turnover rates in whatever company or department they're using...
 
I've had to use dial-up when moving, otherwise I would be without e-mail for a month or two. AOL was always the most convenient to start and the free period would cover the time I was between broadband. Unfortunately, it is a pain to cancel.
 
Oddly enough, I talk at home to my friends and family just like I talk to you guys. If I think something is funny / stupid / lame, I make a funny comment on it and go for the cheap laugh. Having said that:

I too am simply flabbergasted by the sheer amount of people that use AOL and MySpace...BUT....it seems like every time I open my mouth to NON-TECH friends family and or acquaintances, I hear something along the lines of..

"what's wrong with AOL?"

"I have MySpace, I'll friend you..." (no thanks)

The sad, sad fact of the matter is that regular people just don't know any better and they keep crappy stuff like this going.

*sigh*
 
I don't know.. a little over 10 years and only three phone calls to them? Hell, the last time I called in to update billing information I was asking the lady on the phone how long I have been on, how many calls have I logged, and she gasped at passive my account was. She gave me four months of no bills for being such an agreeable person. (@ $14.00 / month, meh.. bar money).

Sibblings that like to chat, but don't want to be spammed to deal ala Yahoo Chat?

The parents enjoy the simplicity and familiarity. It's funny, none of them used the in-aol browser, they all migrated to firefox out of knowing it runs well.

I can't say I use my AOL account much any more, but it's still there. Just like the plethora of other email accounts I have on the 'net.

So everyone take a chill, and clean the foam from your mouth after someone mentions 'AOL'. Trust me, it will be ok.
 
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