Tuesday, October 11, 2011
AOL Billing Texan Man Wrongly for 6 Years
Category: NewsPeople who don’t read their bank statements carefully beware that they may be paying for services not rendered. This is what happened to Steve Skirritt, a painting contractor living in Katy, Texas. Steve subscribed to AOL’s high-speed Internet offered by AOL via Time Warner in 2002.
Four years later, Steve stopped using the service as Time Warner left his area. But just weeks ago, he noticed from his bank statement that he had been charged $3000 to $4000 by AOL, which was paid straight from his bank account, for using high-speed internet over the past nearly 6 years when he was using dial-up all this time.
Steve has contacted the fraud department of AOL and they are now talking to him without offering an apology or refunding his money. Steve wants his money refunded and asks all consumers of all services to beware. He believes it was the company’s responsibility to stay informed on who is and is not continuing to use their service. Ignorance can’t be an excuse in this matter, and if AOL didn’t know about discontinuation of his service, they would be charging Time Warner with not having informed them.
In any case, Steve’s billing issue proves that the previously reported cases of AOL’s billing problems are not over yet and consumers need to watch their payments carefully.
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Why you couldn’t fix it before AOL Billing Texan? I’m shocked to hear that sounds. :(
I once had an AOL subscription and I couldn’t cancel it. No one has time to stay on the phone on hold for that long. I had to go to my job at a call center and ignore the cancellation line (that was my job; it wasn’t for AOL). Just sayin’. NO, you could not cancel your subscription online. You had to phone. I don’t know what it’s like now.
You may like to read my interview with Steve. It’s online at http://digitaljournal.com/article/313022.
Well AOL was a bit of a laughingstock at the next, better, place (after the other place) that I used to work (both to remain nameless). Please remember that the customer service reps that you reach on the phone are basically doing their jobs under horrible conditions so that big companies can continue to make money. And they would all like to quit in disgust, but need jobs. Ask to speak to the manager’s manager’s manager and accept no substitutes. (That’s assuming you can get though to somebody in the first place.)
Worked at Verizon for a bit Pretty much the same scene. I think most telecom’s operate that way.
The last place I worked for wasn’t bad. We were actually supposed to help the customers. It was amazing. After awhile we were even allowed to admit that we were working from Canada, because the customers were so fed up with dealing with people who coúldn’t speak English that they didn’t mind.