Complain about a product or service

AOL - Hard to Cancel

AOL/America Online • AOL Pays $3 Million, Promises to Clean Up Cancellation Process • AOL Settles Florida Fraud Charges • AntiSpyware Group Targets AOL Release As Dangerous • AOL Heads Roll Over Data Leak • AOL Now Free ... Sort Of • AOL Takes More Hits In Press, On Internet • AOL's Problems Worsen as Consumer Complaints Mount • AOL Embarrassed by CNBC Report On Its Business Practices • E-Mail Taxation Without Representation • AOL, Yahoo Planning Postage Charges for Email • AOL Settles With NY, Agrees to Clean Up Cancellation Process • Ohio Settles Lawsuit With AOL • AOL Abandons Broadband • Ohio Latest to Sue AOL • AOL Loses 2 Million Clients, Faces Subpoenas • Class Action Accuses AOL of Double-Billing Scheme • AOL Offers to Settle Federal Charges --- Consumer Complaints • Cancellation Difficulties • Double-billing • "Free" Hours • Unauthorized Charges • Shop-Direct Complaints • Tech Support

It's been said that canceling AOL is harder than eradicating the common cold. It seems that AOL wants to be your Internet-service-for-life.

Rachel of Houston, TX May 29, 2009

I canceled my AOL account. They not only did not stop billing my bank account, they raised their fee. They presently owe me 197.88. They claim I owe them. They called twice today and threatened to put my alleged delinquent account on my Credit Reports. Bad credit record and continual harrassment.

Todd of Port Saint John , FL May 28, 2009

We cancelled our AOL account in June of 2008. We used my son's bank account. He is 17. We thought that the AOL account was closed. Today 5/27/2009 we discovered his account is overdrawn bt 65.83. AOL is charging us 65.83 a month for an account. They are charging us for 2 accounts so they are charging us over 130 a month for 2 accounts. The second account they opened without authorization is in my dead brothers name. He died on 5/23/1989. They charge 65.83 for his account. Total the have overdrwn the account 653. First I called their customer service number that I had to get from Google because AOL does not post one. That person'sname was Christine. She said she could find no account for us. She said she needed our bank account number and routing number to find our account. I did not have the routing number so she gave me the fraud number saying they could find the account without the routing number. I called the fraud number. I spoke with Mark he said he could not find the account without the routing number. So Christine lied to us. Sound familiar? So I got the routing number from my bank and called fraud back and gave it to them. They told me that either the bank account number was wrong and I read it to Mark 2 times. Then he said the bank probably changed the account number and routing number without me knowing it. I was looking at my April 2009 statement and had just called the bank and got the routing number. I had the bank woman read the number back to me so I knew I had the right one. Now Mark told me that the bank had to call AOL to resolve this problem otherwise there would be no resolution. I have been reading on this website that this is the tactic they use with everyone. The new twist to tortre me with is using my dead brothers name to open an account then charge him 65.83. The really weird part is they are sending my dead brothers charges to my son's bank account. My son was not even born when my brother died. My son was born a full 3 years later.

Daniel of Cape Coral, FL May 27, 2009

I called to cancel my AOL service over a year ago and was given a confirmation number. AOL never stopped billing me for the service and continued billing my credit card monthly for more than a year. When I called to complain, I was told the confirmation number was invalid and they could only reimburse me for 3 months at 25.90 per month At 25.90 per month for even 12 months it comes to over over 300.00 that AOLrefuses to pay me back

Robert of Union City, GA May 19, 2009

AOL is continuing to bill for a service I no longer have. The service has been discontinued since 2005.

margreta of philadelphia, PA May 18, 2009

It has taken me 10 months to cancel my AOL account. For everyone of those 10 months, AOL charged to my VISA 25.90. When I sought help over the telephone, the customer agent repeatedly hung up on me.

Rico of West Palm Beach, FL May 17, 2009

It is totally impossible to cancel an account with aol online which is what they say you can do. They have made it impossible to do it.

Edward of Redditch, United Kingdom May 12, 2009

I wanted to change from AOL's dialup to broadband in October 2008. A leaflet from AOL (inserted in a magazine) indicated that one could sign up to broadband and could 'cancel anytime'. I telephoned the number and was told that I had to signup for 18 months and no amount of arguing was going to change their mind. I therefore decided to cancel with AOL altogether and I signed up for broadband with our UK BT (British Telecomms). OK, I had to sign up for 12 months, but at least they were up front with it.

I sent an email to AOL in October 08 requesting cancellation giving them the required details in oreder to do so. However, they kept charging my Credit Card each month, so I kept sending reminder emails and used their ever changing system forms for cancelling. My last email to them was February 09. They kept taking my money. I then contacted my Credit Card company (which I had threatened to do). They Already knew of problems with AOL cancellation. They sent me a form which I completed and they Refunded the offending subscriptions. Now AOL have been continually contacting me demaing that I pay the 'live' account, some £80! I have refused and keep expaling that I had cancelled and that I have documentary evidence. Tonight, they have have indicated that they are going to send in the bailiffs.

I don't what the hell to do as baliffs will enforce and there is nothing you can do to stop them and they will add on their considerable costs. I am totally stuck, I am being persued by a company, which in my opinion, is committing fraud and I do not know what to do to stop them. Can anyone help or advise as I at my wits end and extreemly stressed out? Please help - anyone, please...

Douglas of Coconut Creek , FL May 5, 2009

In april 2008, I had a AOL,CD saying 1 month free. I used it for 1 week, and then my computor broke.I had called AOL,and told them I was cancelling the free month, and service for good.I had bought a new high speed system.I signed up with Comcast. The new system does not take dial up, it has to be connected to a high speed cable connection

Danny of martinsburg, WV May 5, 2009

i try out aol for 90 days free and only use it for about 30 days if that much, and i call and had my account drop, this was way back in april of last year, and now its 5/5/09 and on saturday i notice they took out 77 so i call and they said they did not take it yet and i told them they had no right to take it and on monday they took it and they keep telling me it will take 2-3 months but 2-3 never came for them and they still keep pulling money out, the day i use it for 30 days i call and had it drop the account but they seem not to have that on file, they was told not to take money and they did two days later, something needs to be done about this tomany people getting rip off by them stealing money

Linda of Port Orchard, WA May 1, 2009

I have been lied to and cheated for 9 months while trying to get AOL to close an account I was paying for in my daughter's name.

They told me they could not bring up an account using my daughter's name, phone number or address. Nor could they bring up an account using my name. They wanted me to provide the number to the card they were charging for AOL services, however, it was replaced by a new one so I did not have access to the old number. I was told by one supervisor (Christine in the Philipines) that I needed to get the authorization number from my bank for the latest transaction and she could locate the account that way. Unfortunately, when I called back I got a different call center, India, and the supervisor there, Jack, so I had to start from the beginning with searching by names and phone numbers etc. then he said he could not use the authorization number (that I took the time to get from my bank) to bring up an account and he did not know why Christine would have told me such a thing was possible. Now we are at 1.5hrs on the phone, today alone, and he says I'm out of luck cancelling the account if I cannot give him the Visa number used to initiate the account! WHAT!!

I asked how many other call centers they have and he said there was only India and the Philipines. So I called until I got the Philipines call center and asked to speak to Christine, who of course, was not available so I spoke to Supervisor Axel. He used the Authorization number, that Jack said could not be used, to bring up an account and guess what? He brought up the account and guess what? It was in my daughter's name! The name Christine said she could not bring up an active account in! He said he could have brought it up under her name and that it was an active account. He is the first AOL employee to be able to bring up any active account that I was being billed for. That is why I believe they are liers and cheats! He said that since there were no calls made previously, he could not not refund any charges.

I told him that having no notes of my or my daughter calling previously does not mean we did not. We were simply told there was no active account to make notes on. I actually had a bit of a conversation about that issue with both Christine and Jack as well as Axel. So, the rule about having proof that you have tried to cancel an account or they will have to refund you... well they get around that by just pretending they can't find an account until one day you get someone who will actually admit to bringing up the "active" account that you are being bogusly billed for; you have no proof you ever called before because there are no notes on the account as they "could not locate an active account" any other time you called, therefore you are stuck paying for something you didn't even get to use.

Back to the top |