Perhaps it goes without saying that many ex-customers of AOL are still finding it hard to cancel their accounts. But just in case you think that the problem AOL had with the New York Attorney General last year has made it change its ways, allow me to relate the experience of a reader trying to cancel a DSL account she never actually had.
"I am a 23-year-old, working and going to school and just trying to make it in the cruel world that we live in," the reader wrote. "I need to save money, so one thing I don't appreciate is the fact that AOL is charging me for a DSL account when I've never had DSL in my house."
The reader says she had signed up for one of those 3-month free trials for AOL's dial-up service, but then decided to go with a cheaper alternative. "Before the free trial was over, I called AOL and cancelled," the reader wrote. "I had never even logged on to the account, but then, even though the period was not up, I was charged $59.60 for what they said was a DSL account. I called again to cancel and at first they said they wouldn't let me. And then they charged me $12.99 for some shopping thing they said I had. It's crazy."
After repeated phone calls and online exchanges, the reader seems to have succeeded in at least getting AOL to stop racking up additional charges, but getting her money refunded seems impossible. "I have spoken to a number of reps and several have promised me a refund, but it doesn't happen," the reader wrote. "I have kept all the confirmation numbers, but it doesn't seem to matter. I called one last time to try to get my money back and was told I could not have a refund. I have been used and abused by AOL, and now I don't know where to go from here."
Going a few miles north might help. The reader lives in Pennsylvania, so she's a little too far south to take advantage of the refund complaint procedures New York set up for its residents. "I haven't heard anything about AOL being sued here as of yet," the reader wrote. "But I need to do something, because this is getting ridiculous. And I recommend that anyone thinking about using AOL should first look very seriously at what so many others have been through with this company."
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