You’ve Got Blackmail: The AOL Account That Wouldn’t Die

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Nightmare stories like this one never fail to make your blood boil. Being billed for stealth upgrades on a free account that you haven’t used in years is pretty low, but then again, would you expect anything less from AOL.

When I categorically refused to pay a penny of these fictitious charges, he warned that his collection agency would report my uncollected “bill” to the credit bureaus. (I suppose this might be announced with the message, “You’ve got blackmail.”) I told him to go ahead. By the time his report arrives, I will have filed a fraud alert with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
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We closed our AOL account that was running for like 2 years after we had first switched to cable, and they happily refunded us for the two years that the account never signed on at all.

+1 for that.

-1 to people who still use AOL though.
 
I got free AOL when I first signed up for Time Warner cable Internet (now Roadrunner). I remember setting up the account but I dont think I used it for more than maybe a month. I remember back when it was a pay for service that they were getting alot of bad press about how they gank you into an agreement but would not tell you how to cancel it.

iirc AOL has split from Time Warner and is no longer part of them, this may be why these charges are showing up as the new owner is trying to get some income.
 
I've noticed a trend with older people who aren't that computer savvy. They think "their internet wont work if they dont have AOL". Even they are paying for Highspeed. looool
 
My aunt has had Verizon DSL for years, yet she refuses to cancel AOL. It drives me nuts.
 
This is where ignorance of the law keeps people from defending themselves. It also is where the corrupt congress earns its payoffs.

The person should file a federal civil suit the moment the item hits thier credit report:

Violations of the FCBA "Fair Credit Billing Act" for not being sent proper bills for the account. This gets them a nice $1K statutory and opens up Willful Violation punative damages under FCBA.... but, there is a 1 year SOL, so file it asap.

There is a bullshit dance you have to undergo when setting up a DATA FURNISHER for suit, so he has to file a dispute directly with the furnisher stating the information is incorrect, and demanding it be removed. Only after they refuse can you legally sue them under the FCRA "Fair Credit Reporting Act". There is a 2 year SOL on the FCRA. The bullshit surrounding this opens up punative damages as well as the $1K statutory penalties available.

The caller has 10 days to send a WRITTEN collection notice after first contact, otherwise they violate the FDCPA "Fair Debt Collections Pratices Act", then all the paperwork better be spot on, any funny business opens up more charges. This has a $1K statutory penalty available, as well as actual and punative damages potential. The SOL is 1 year.

There is also the TCPA "Telephone Consumer Protection Act", that has some protections against calling and harrassing you on the phone, especially is its a cell phone.

RULE NUMBER ONE: Always RECORD the calls. Let the collector scumbag hang him/her self. Regardless of state law, the recordings are permissible in Fderal Court.

There are also state law equivalents for most of the consumer protect laws, so also include counts for those violations.

Then there is Common Law Fraud.... and if this call 5 was recorded, Common Law Extortion.

I wish some jagoff would try to pull this shit with me, I beat the living snot out of Capital One trying to fuck me over, it cost them thousands in court costs, lawers fees, and a nice check to me.

It's a damn shame that so few people have the foggiest idea what thier rights are and what legal means they have to deal with shit like this. 99% of the crap the perps get away with because people dont know, get scared, and cave to pure extortion.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
I wish some jagoff would try to pull this shit with me, I beat the living snot out of Capital One trying to fuck me over, it cost them thousands in court costs, lawers fees, and a nice check to me.
QUOTE]

This story sounds intriguing. Care to elaborate?
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nicknations said:
I've noticed a trend with older people who aren't that computer savvy. They think "their internet wont work if they dont have AOL". Even they are paying for Highspeed. looool
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lol you aren't kidding man. A friend on mines mother (who's in her late 60's) was explaining a computer problem to me and was floored when she told me that she still pays to use AOL (while paying for dsl)

I tried explaining to her that she didn't need it anymore but she just didn't understand what I was talking about. lol My buddy was the first person I knew to get online... with AOL, so I can only assume that they've been subscribers ever since there was a consumer based internet
 
We used AOL along time ago, but I'll be damned if it didnt take us months to get them to stop billing us. When we signed up for them they were the only reliable ISP in the area, then mindspring came around.
 
When my parents cancled their account WAY back in the day, they also changed their debit information. What happend after the attempted cancle was hilarious and annoying, constant back dated bills sent in the mail, then actually calling us telling us to pay our bill on a cancled account from a year ago, and threatening legal action because we swapped banks and won't pay them.

Not once did they threaten to stop giving us service though! (even though we cancled)...
 
If it wasn't for AOL I would of never of met my wife.

Please no cost of wife vs just an AOL account. LOL
 
Luckily never had AOL but damn they were annoying when they bought CompuServe! I wonder if they were trying to close CS at the time they bought it. Finally switched to cable pretty much since dialup is stupid after going to college or university (damn can't they make up their minds? every school wants to be a university for some reason.) They were pestering for "upgrading" to AOL. How the hell is AOL an upgrade?
 
Slightly off topic, but Ill give a quick summary:

I was identity theft'd, some idiot took a Capital One card out under my name.

Used it for a bit and defaulted. Left a $500ish balance. 5 years later (just before SOL runs out), they come out of the woodwork with a flurry of collection agancy's who "finally" tracked me down... been in the same place for many years, cough. I say it aint mine, they say we'll sue, I say ok knock yourself out.

Lawyer files suit, I do all the right things for FDCPA, lawyer then violates the FDCPA in a few ways. We go to trial, they have NO PROOF, judge dismisses with prejudice but knows zilch about FDCPA so just dismisses counterclaims w/o prejudice.

Couple months later, COne "invents" some made up invoices (clearly switched my real address with the fake one the ID thief used) and the local lawyer has a friend of his, a judge come to my county on a special trip just to hear a motion to overturn the dismissal and grant a new trial. They neglect to inform ME about any of it. I get a notice of a new trial, I'm like WTF. So I file a motion for the judge to reconsider his ill considered action, he declines.... so I file an appeal, and file amended counterclaims including the new FDCPA violations of the lawyer, and add in FCRA violations as COne is now ruining my credit with retro-active account history tacked on my credit reports, etc.

Oh yeah, and the $500 has grown to $4K+ over those years where they never contacted me. Also BTW, after 5yrs, the ID theft complaint met with a good chuckle from the local police, so no help there.

So we then wait for the appeals court... a year+ goes by, the SOL expires, and the day the appeals court agrees to hear the case for my violation of due process claim... they drop the case, but I refuse to drop the counterclaims, so they settle for a couple grand to make me go away.

Oh yeah, and the killer counterclaim was against the lawyer.... who obtained a copy of my credit report before filing the original suit, in his OWN NAME, a violation of state law.

I could have been a real dick, but settled because I was just as sick of it as they were.

The lawyer must have cost them $10K minimum, so that $500 became very expensive.

Problem is very few know their rights, 95% of all cases in small claims credit card suits end in either a default judgment because the person is scared and doesn't show, or an agreement to settle and pay X.

I've seen people settle for debt discharged in bankruptcy, or run up by an X wife AFTER the divorce, just because they don't know thier rights and can't afford a lawyer to help them. The credit/collections industry knows it and runs schemes and scams to take advantage of peoples ignorance.
 
I am calling you if anything like this happens to me...:)

xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
This is where ignorance of the law keeps people from defending themselves. It also is where the corrupt congress earns its payoffs.

The person should file a federal civil suit the moment the item hits thier credit report:

Violations of the FCBA "Fair Credit Billing Act" for not being sent proper bills for the account. This gets them a nice $1K statutory and opens up Willful Violation punative damages under FCBA.... but, there is a 1 year SOL, so file it asap.

There is a bullshit dance you have to undergo when setting up a DATA FURNISHER for suit, so he has to file a dispute directly with the furnisher stating the information is incorrect, and demanding it be removed. Only after they refuse can you legally sue them under the FCRA "Fair Credit Reporting Act". There is a 2 year SOL on the FCRA. The bullshit surrounding this opens up punative damages as well as the $1K statutory penalties available.

The caller has 10 days to send a WRITTEN collection notice after first contact, otherwise they violate the FDCPA "Fair Debt Collections Pratices Act", then all the paperwork better be spot on, any funny business opens up more charges. This has a $1K statutory penalty available, as well as actual and punative damages potential. The SOL is 1 year.

There is also the TCPA "Telephone Consumer Protection Act", that has some protections against calling and harrassing you on the phone, especially is its a cell phone.

RULE NUMBER ONE: Always RECORD the calls. Let the collector scumbag hang him/her self. Regardless of state law, the recordings are permissible in Fderal Court.

There are also state law equivalents for most of the consumer protect laws, so also include counts for those violations.

Then there is Common Law Fraud.... and if this call 5 was recorded, Common Law Extortion.

I wish some jagoff would try to pull this shit with me, I beat the living snot out of Capital One trying to fuck me over, it cost them thousands in court costs, lawers fees, and a nice check to me.

It's a damn shame that so few people have the foggiest idea what thier rights are and what legal means they have to deal with shit like this. 99% of the crap the perps get away with because people dont know, get scared, and cave to pure extortion.
Click to expand...
 
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