It was quite amusing seeing the article on AOL regarding cutting service. I've seen people for years struggle though this. It reminds me of a few other online services that were like this in the 1980s - compuserve being one of them.

I also remember the BS I had to go through when establishing service through the local phone company when I was living in Pennsylvania years ago. The lady tried to sell me everything but the kitchen sink. I kept repeating to her that all I wanted was plain touch tone service with no frills...no call waiting, forwarding, etc... after spending 20 minutes being forced to listen to her sales pitch, I finally demanded to speak to the manager.

Your better than I was! No way I would waste 20 minutes to them. I cancelled service with them a few years ago (my wife had signed up only later to hate them) and it was the same way. "Why do you want to cancel, what can I do to make you stay." etc. They offered me 3 months of service free!! I finally said, after 5 minutes of the phone, "what do you not understand....cancel my service!" They finally got the message I guess!! lol...

Marketing departments can be quite aggresive. I understand this as I have a degree in marketing and also used to be a military recruiter. However, I know my limits and generally treat other people as I would expect them to treat me.

Sales and retention is very tough - and let's face it - they're the meat and potatoes of any business.

Many here won't have seen this, but given the recent news stories about the hell of cancelling an AOL broadband service, I thought I'd bring up this link. I went through it all about 18 months ago, and reall, it doesn't get musch worse than the example I give here. A few of you may even remember it, but newer members will not...

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic25812.html

Three weeks of 3 hour phone calls every other day!

AOL also continue to send out junk mail to ex-customers long after the account has been closed.

If they can`t hassle you through the phone line, they hassle you through the letter box.

I used AOL for six months or so years ago. After my AOL free trial I tired Blue Light (powered by Net-Zero,) got very slow connections and they wanted credit card payments for service calls with poor English speaking people from India per minute. So i canceled the Blue Light even though they offered 90 more days for free(2.8K was torture!) Blue Light was so bad and kept AOL. I canceled AOL without any problems at all months latter.

new and interesting story... the beginning of the end???

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/11/ti...il_aol_future/

the end? I don't think so.

it just means that they will be financed 100% from advertisments instead of subscription fees. AOL's "AIM" service is pretty much king of the instant messaging programs. that is where their future lies.

The AIM service used to be a simple program, but in recent months it has grown into a huge program just like AOL itself which forces a ton of extra crap on your PC without asking you. AOL likes to advertise their so-called "security features" like anti-virus/spyware/etc. if you ask me AOL is one giant virus packed with more spyware and adware than it will ever protect you from

just my 2 cents

Yes, we tried AOL and wile installing it popped up a message saying


"Please wait while AOL optimizes your registry and system"

simply put:

it f**ked up my PC so bad i had to reinstall windows just to get stable

here's an amusing read, the AOL retention manual for customers:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/excl...led-188005.php

When that came out the AOL exec's must have laid streaks in their shorts! Pretty interesting read and very revealing. Makes me extra glad that I have never signed up with them.

As an Ex employee of AO(hell) in Redcliffe Street Bristol (now moved) AOL only had any morals when it came to earning money as all the tech support were told to work on a basis of a 7min turn around as it was a free phone number and AOL had bills to pay, needless to say we were told to fobb people off at all costs when seven minutes were up we had to get rid of the caller ASAP so we would have to say things like unplug this unplug that and do a restart just so they would go away.

3mths in that dump was more than enough.

thats very interesting, sounds kind of familiar when i tried to cancel. i said " i wan to cancel my AOL account" he asked what i used the internet for, and i said email, and web surfing, he then went on and on about how "safe, and reliable, and easy" AOL is. I just hung up, and notified my credit card company to stop making the paymnets.

...AMD

Yep they Ultra Suck in member sales they had to keep so many members per month or we wouldnt get our bonus of free coffee for a month

they use free coffee, as a bonus??? they shoudl care less about free coffee, and concentrate more on customer service.

...AMD

free coffee? Boy that would work wonders for productivity in the Army!

But the 7 minute rule sounds all too familiar. Many companies have either morons for tech support or they're greedy.

Just to be thorough - the infamous AOL cancellation call that was recorded by a customer trying to cancel. It's on an embedded player in this page...

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/...aol-180392.php

Pretty funny but sad video. I don't think the guy should have lost his job because I am sure AOL pushes their sales reps to do what he did.

Yes they do, as per Tedsters link

un-fvcking real. I can't BELIEVE the audacity of this company. This is the absolute WORST customer service I have ever heard. This is definate grounds for a lawsuit.

I'm emailing this to everyone I know. I hope this company goes out of business.