AOL Broadband

AOL Broadband

My mother recently made a mistake and signed up for AOL over broadband because she thought it would "make broadband faster" as it advertised on the website. It doesn't. We already get broadband from time warner cable. We called AOL to cancel. This is when the trouble started. On the phone, this overly friendly sales guy REFUSED, simply REFUSED to let my mother cancel. He keeps on insisting that since her free trial has barely started she should give it time to REALLY use the service. We said, no... we don't need it, please cancel it. 15 minutes we spent on the phone with this guy. He just refused to stop counting and recounting the amazing benefits of aol over broadband. He kept on saying... this will make your broadband FASTER. We asked how? He really didn't have an answer other than "It comes with free software!" I said, we don't need the anti spam/virus/crap software. It didn't matter, he just kept on going. In the end my mother caved in and let him offer her an extra month of free trial and finally got off the phone. So of course with busy lives, neither of us remembered this horrible little subscription until months later when she checked her credit bills and noticed she has been charged for 2 months. We called them back tonight at 2am to REALLY cancel this time. A man answered with an indian accent, he took down our information and transferred us to another lady also with an indian accent. Except this time we can hardly understand what she was saying. We gave her our info again and explained our situation and asked her to credit our card back since she can clearly tell we did not use the account at all from her records. She said that out of her goodwill, she will credit only one month back. I replied that was unfair because we tried very hard to cancel the first time and wasn't successful, that's why we were charged for 2 months now. She kept on talking faster and faster until the only words I can understand is "good will" and "one month". I asked for her manager. She said "It's a waste of time because we all have equal power". I was mildly shocked to hear her tell me that it's a waste of time to speak with someone else. I insisted on speaking with the manager. Finally a man gets on the phone with nearly perfect English. I asked him if he knew the background information, he just said "no problem we will credit your two months back, now I will forward you to cancellation.". 30 minutes later, I finally got the refund. But the saga continues. Apparently the cancellation department in India is just as ruthless as the cancellation department in the states. After asking for our account information for the nth time, she asked me why I wanted to cancel. I said, I just dont want or need it so please just cancel it. She said, do you see the aol icon on your desktop? we have many, many amazing features! I told her I have already deleted all the trace of aol program so please just cancel our account. She sounded shocked, she went on and started reading off the other "amazing" features aol has. At this point, I flat out told her that understand all the features and it's a much of useless crap that we do not need, please, please for god's sake just cancel my account. After 45 minutes rom the start of our call, we finally got our cancellation number. Take my advice, if you value your time or money, DO NOT sign up with AOL. They take advange of those with a weak will and prey on those with a lack of technical understanding. In other words, they are just EVIL. ** update:

I just read some other reviews and realized the "aol over broadband" service is supposed to be only $9.95 not the $23.90 they charged us. I guess we were being charged for a whole dial up service! My mother said she remembered telling the guy she HAD broadband. This means he signed her up for aol broadband even when she didn't need it. Did I mention they are truly EVIL?

eileen

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