🚀 go-pugleaf

(Or, "Why I quit AOL and joined MSN")

Just to give AOL a little grief to repay them for what they gave me.

We went on vacation back in late November.  Upon return, I found a
notice in my (US Postal Service) mail stating that, unless I informed
them by yesterday (i.e. the day before I returned), they would
automatically switch me over to their unlimited access plan.  Since
we use AOL less than about 5 hours a month, this seemed like a
losing proposition to me.

I called AOL the next day (Monday, we got back late Sunday night).  The
very friendly service rep stated that they had given me plenty of
warning about the up coming change, and that it would not be possible
for me to get a refund to switch to the plan I really wanted (which
was $5/month, instead of $20/month).  I complained that I hadn't
seen any notification other than the one that came in the mail while
I was away on vacation.  She mentioned that AOL had been running
ads on TV about the change.  I hadn't seen any of these ads, and I
watch very little TV.  Finally, after I said, "Ok fine, terminate
my membership", she did something very nice.  She gave me the $15
credit on my account (which, from what I can tell, she was not
authorized to do).

So everything is OK.

Well, not really.  I, like everyone else, have not been able to get
through to AOL for several weeks.  In fact, I was only able to log
in once (perhaps twice) since I talked to the AOL service rep. back
in early December.  Seeing the notice that AOL was giving refunds to
customers who had been unable to contact their service, I figured I
would give them a call about the $5 they presumably billed me for
January, even though I was never able to log in.

Well, at first this new service rep claims is that it is against
AOL policy to give more than one refund (whatever that means).
Furthermore, it turns out that AOL hasn't converted me to the $5 plan
at ALL, and are still charging me $20/month.  On top of that,
they have also billed me for Feb. (at $20/month).  We argue for quite
a long time, and finally the rep. agrees to give me a $20 refund
for January, but that I would have to call back at the end of Feb.
if I was still having trouble connecting.  Well, that's not really
acceptable to me, since I was only supposed to be charged a total
of $10 for Jan & Feb to begin with, and she won't give me the $15
credit for Feb, even though I requested to be converted to the $5
plan back in December!

So, I quit.  Now I'm an MSN member.

I think you should all quit too.

	- Matt Goheen


P.S. I am not affiliated with Microsoft or AOL in any way.