Have you guys seen this? It took one man 21 minutes to cancel his AOL account

[Xevious]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY&feature=Views&page=1&t=t&f=b (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY&feature=Views&page=1&t=t&f=b)

[jmcc]

That's what you get for having an AOL account.

[botticus]

I heard Rover talking about this either this morning or yesterday morning. Hilarious.

Some news team did a sting following this whole thing to see if they really changed how they were responding... took them 46 minutes to cancel.

I signed up for AOL a year or two ago to do some testing for work (we were having an issue with AOL users receiving our emails), and it didn't take me too long to cancel.

[Steggy]

jesus... aol sucks.

[senorwoohoo]

Hahaha, that's hilarious.

[Kayden]

Heard it on the radio. :lol:

Cancel the account...
Cancel the account...
Cancel the account...
Cancel the account...
Cancel the account...
Cancel the account...

Makes me want to sign up for an AOL account just so I can cancel and listen to the squirm. I mentally picture them being viciously lashed everytime someone cancels. :lol:

[ZeroSupporT]

I can't believe they actually fired the guy though, in most cases they encourage this kind of pushing to keep them paying once a month.

[slvrdrgn123]

the good old days, lol.

[Snake2715]

The guy will inevitably show up somewhere claiming he was told to do this and the whole firing will backfire..

Give it a week or two.

[jaykrue]

Wait, AOL still exists? :-s Didn't realize there were that many crazy ppl.

[jezebelseven]

Some news team did a sting following this whole thing to see if they really changed how they were responding... took them 46 minutes to cancel.



46 sounds a lot closer to what I spent-- Signed up back a year or two ago for one of those free ipod site things, and I had to argue with this woman for several minutes, after being on hold for a fairly long time, before she'd just cancel the damn thing. Sounded like the same lines the guy in the interview was getting, starting out with the 'do you have high speed' question, them trying to push the cheapest account you can use with highspeed, etc. Hard to believe the AOL worker did say a few things he did though, mine wasn't rude, just annoyingly persistant.

Shortly after she cancelled it I started getting weekly telemarketing calls from AOL asking if I wanted to come back. :roll: I forget why they ever stopped, I'm guessing I went off on them telling them to stop calling.

Oddly enough I started getting the same type of 'Are you SUUUUURE' talk when I cancelled my old xbox account today, but the guy was nice enough and stopped when I said 'Thank you, but I'm not interested' fairly firmly after he tried a few different reasons I should keep it. He suggested I keep it for the monthly fee for a 'practice' account, but fuck that, I'm poor.

[RedvsBlue]

Well at least they cancelled the account in the end.

When my dad tried to cancel our account about 10 years ago they told him on the phone it was cancelled but just ended up continuing to bill the credit card anyway. It continued for about 2-3 months before my dad caught it. Needless to say, he was quite pissed.

[stag8603]

I've heard about this taking forever...it's ridiculous. AOL should realize that they suck and no one wants their service anymore....

[Z-Saber]

I had a semi-similar experience with an iPod offer, except I'm a total pushover. After going through the automated crap, I get to a person. I tell him I don't want it, I only signed up because of an iPod referal scheme. He says okay, then tells me why I should keep it, and how awesome AOL is.

Eventually, the conversation ended with him extending my trial. Not happy.

Call back, wait again, get a different guy, explain what just happened, and the dude totally complies and cancels it after maybe one or two minutes of small talk.

It all just depends on who you get.

[ITDEFX]

why do people fucken still sign up for AOL????????????????

I see more Juno *highspeed* and Verizon and COX ads for internet on tv more then AOL , and yea AOL HQ is in my area :(

[RandyTsai]

this reminds me of when i tried to cancel my account. i eventually had to tell the rep that i was selling my house and moving to africa, where i would be living in a tree without access to a phone line. they are seriously relentless.

[Xevious]

Oddly enough I started getting the same type of 'Are you SUUUUURE' talk when I cancelled my old xbox account today, but the guy was nice enough and stopped when I said 'Thank you, but I'm not interested' fairly firmly after he tried a few different reasons I should keep it. He suggested I keep it for the monthly fee for a 'practice' account, but fuck that, I'm poor.

When I cancelled my Xbox live account, the sales rep tried to talk me into staying on. But our conversation was cordial and the sales rep wasn't nearly as bad as the AOL people.

AOL is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to customer service.

[Chris in Cali]

Big deal, it takes a few months to completely close an Ebay/Paypal account.

[alongx]

21 minutes? This must have been a speed run. I had AOL for a month, as part of some site to get free DVDs, and it took me about an hour to get the assholes to cancel the account.

[Zing]

Big deal, it takes a few months to completely close an Ebay/Paypal account.
Not sure what you mean by this. It took me literally 2 minutes to close my wife's Paypal account.

When I had AOL back in 1995, they were automatically withdrawing their fees from my checking account. I cancelled it after 6 months or so. I had stopped using that particular checking account, so it had maybe $5 in it. Of course, AOL kept taking fees every month causing my account to overdrawn. I had to write to the bank informing them of AOL's actions. It took 3 months for AOL to finally cancel out the account.

I don't recall the Xbox Live rep pushing anything on me. It's probably because when he asked why I was cancelling my service, I told him I no longer owned an Xbox (the truth).

[Graystone]

Not sure what you mean by this. It took me literally 2 minutes to close my wife's Paypal account.


But they hold it open for 6 months just incase a buyer is unhappy or you owe money. When you "closed it" you just told paypal I'm done with you. Then they said alright if nothing goes wrong in 6 months will shut it down.

I've never had AOL never want it. I don't want AOL because I'm not into sponsoring them spaming peoples mailboxes with cds every other day.

[HumanSnatcher]

As much as I hate to admit it, I still have an account with AOL. *ducks from the oncomming flames lol* I really should cancel it though. All their of the content is online now. Only thing that isn't is their chat rooms. Which are totally retarded anyway. It only takes one random asshat kid to simply IM me with "a/s/l" before I get pissed off. My mother has an OL account, but then again, shes 60 has doesn't know much about the internet, so I guess, in a way, its good for her.

Of course, if you want to totally fuck with random idiots its good for some laughs...

[doraemonkerpal]

i cancelled a family members aol account a few months ago and it took me less than 10 minutes. i dunno if it matters, but i got an employee that was clearly outsourced. maybe you only get a pushy customer service agent if you get a local? :lol:

[Metal Boss]

Ahh, it took me longer...



I remember they put me out to some outsourced representative who could barely speak english. He told me, get this, "AOL customers are our gods", it must have been around 40 minutes. These people aren't expert marketers. They cancelled my acct and I never heard anything from them again though.

[basketkase543]

I got everyone beat. It took me 6 MONTHS to cancel my account a few years back. They just kept throwing free months on top of free months until it became such pain in the ass to remember when the free months were going to expire that I just had to say stop.

[racthamp]

just pretend to speak English with very thick accent and said you are moving out of the country.. usually that would do it..... :)

[JohnnyDrama]

I guess it does matter who you talk to, when I cancelled my AOL account 5 years ago the person I talked wasn't really persistent and wasn't really pressing me to stay with AOL. All they did was ask me why I was leaving AOL (which was because AOL is too expensive and I'm switching to another ISP), and after about a minute of trying to convince me to stay, they finally closed the account.

[Will]

I had a hard drive crash last year. I currently use people pc and didnt have their disk since I originally downloaded their stuff. I went to wal-mart and grabbed a aol free trial to use to get online, use to get people pc stuff back then cancel. I got it all going and used it for total of MAYBE 10 mins. Used it, got my people pc stuff and called the next day saying cancel.

So a few weeks later I get my cc statement and noticed AOL tried charging me 23.99 for using their service. Basically they were charging me within the first month of a 90 day free trial. It took me over 4 calls of telling them to take it off and on the 5th call and 3 months later, I told the guy I had already contacted my cc company and my next call was a complaint to me state attorney general.

[jezebelseven]

I don't recall the Xbox Live rep pushing anything on me. It's probably because when he asked why I was cancelling my service, I told him I no longer owned an Xbox (the truth).

I would've tried that one but his records should've shown I had a second account and I didn't want him cancelling that one as it has 14 months of credit on it.

One of his first questions for me would've still been asked I imagine with that excuse-- He asked if anyone else in my family would like to take the account over, to which I replied none of my family plays games.

They just kept throwing free months on top of free months until it became such pain in the ass to remember when the free months were going to expire that I just had to say stop.

I have a friend who's been using that loophole for years to get free internet. Granted, it's AOL, but it's still free internet.

[dberuvides]

Why would somebody pay 23.99 for dial-up when you can get a 500k basic DSL connection from BellSouth or other phone companies for 29.99??????

[vietgurl]

I got everyone beat. It took me 6 MONTHS to cancel my account a few years back. They just kept throwing free months on top of free months until it became such pain in the ass to remember when the free months were going to expire that I just had to say stop.

Haha, my mom ended up getting almost 2 years of AOL free because of this; they just kept adding free months whenever she tried to cancel and she was like "why not?"

[integralsmatic]

this reminds me of when i tried to cancel my account. i eventually had to tell the rep that i was selling my house and moving to africa, where i would be living in a tree without access to a phone line. they are seriously relentless.

the reps are relentless...it took me about the same time to cancel my account...since i have cable now there is no need for shitty dial up anymore. the kept trying to push on to keep the service because of their anti-spware software than gave me a whole spiel about HK people stealing credit card numbers and how they are able to monitor everything you do. they will tell you anything to keep you.

[D4rkN1ght]

i like how while they are talking about their trouble canceling their internet accounts read the text below about the police investigating dead 5 year olds, and dead girls in drive bys. lol

[chosen1s]

Why would somebody pay 23.99 for dial-up when you can get a 500k basic DSL connection from BellSouth or other phone companies for 29.99??????

Sadly, there are still many places where High-Speed isn't available. It's hard to imagine for those of us who aren't in rural areas, but there are a lot of people out there with no High-Speed option (I work with a lot of them). Don't say satellite either - the cost is through the roof and it's screwy anyway.

As for me, this makes me feel a lot better. When I got my first job several years back I took advantage of AOL's "free trial" to get on the net, download some other software, and go with one of those "always free" Juno accounts (back when that was an option and you just had to deal with ads). I ended up telling the guy "look, even if you gave me free service for the rest of my life I still wouldn't want AOL" to get him to cancel the account.

[Quackzilla]

Holy shit man, only 21 minutes?

How can you do it that fast? Seriously, I need to forward that info to some freinds!

[CoryCubed]

We have a call center here in okc, I see hiring ads for them all the time for "retention specialists" or whatever it is they decide to call it that week. Does pay $14.40 an hr though to start.

I had an issue with them awhile back and they give me 3 months, but a week later they billed over $90 for it. Took me an hour to get them to get the charge reversed.

[coolsteel]

I had AOL a few years ago, really took all of five minutes to close and was pretty painless, I guess it all depends on who you get . Back in the day I used to work for Cellone and I can honestly say I would have killed for a 21 minute cancel time, the wait time just to get someone was reaching an hour and a half then you had to go through 40 minutes of straight bullshit and arguing just to finally get them to let you out. Had to console many a customer after they went through that.

[cheapgamesplease]

there are a lot of people out there with no High-Speed option (I work with a lot of them).

Or don't want to pay the ridiculous price. My cable charges $50 a month for hi-speed; forget that.

Wish DSL was available here ($15 a month).

But for now I'll go with the phoneline.