[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Just Cancel the @#%$* Account! here

[idigitalpix]

Experience with AOL,someone opened AOL, using my VISA, charges were posted for 3 months, I called each month, could not get anyone at AOL to acknowledge fraud account. VISA gave me 3 months credits, (said AOL was charged back).NOW: I am on second collection letter from Allied Interstate for $101.60. Excellent experience: opened Copper.net account for my son,for short term temporary use, stopped service, restarted it, then cancelled it, each time with one phone call and extremely cordial and polite person at Copper.net

[swvaboy]

So True...So True, but I disagree with you about Stamps.com. I emailed to cancel, received the email I had to call, went trough the whole begging me to stay process and still got charged and was told I never finalized the cancellation process; to this day I still get an email about owing them. I learned along time ago, to start memberships with a prepaid card, and then if I want to keep the membership, I switch to a real credit card. If I cancel and then they try to bill me, they are out of luck.

[ncgmcpherson]

I had a terrible time with AOL. They came bundled with my time warner broadband. First, they refused to unbundle themselves, so I cancelled the whole thing. Then I got the charges. The first phone call seemed successful, but then the charges continued. I called twice more, each time getting someone in India claiming they were in Fl. I work with offshoring, so it surprised these guys when I started naming off their towns in India.In any case, the last phone call I accused AOL of either first handed fraud, or aiding and abetting because I never authorized an AOL account. The last guy in India sent me to Atlanta, Georgia to their fraud department. I told the woman what happened, she looked things up and admitted they had screwed up. The person who originally cancelled the account listed a refund to me, which I never received, and the woman claimed they were billing back for the refund. Once she realized none had taken place she literally wiped the account. She also admitted their initial call facility is in India and their Florida facility had been closed sometime ago. Nice to find one honest person.

[ncgmcpherson]

I tried to cancel with Rhapsody once. I too had the begging and whining, so we might have had the some guy, arroding to real anyway. :-)In any case, I finally got the guy to agree to cancel the account once I had thought about it, like I didn't do that already, and sent him an email. I was angry at the pain in the butt the process had become and so waited until the next day to send the email. The account was cancelled.I too wonder why companies think this will win our hearts and minds. All it did was tick me off, and made me not want to ever use their service again.

[rickk1]

This sounds like SBC/ATT. I had nothing but problems from them each and everytime I tried to contact them concerning issues. Everytime I called them, I went through at least 5 customer service reps and several supervisors and each one asked me for my account info. They are rude, illiterate, and have only 1 concern...money...how to get your money but not deliver what they promised. I had a contract with them and they renigged on the contract by not providing me with the service per the contract details.

[LaJan]

Between NetZero, Earthlink, and AOL I may have spent 100 hours trying to get free. And when the "service" doesn't have an 800 (or other toll free number), the cost to find out they are gonna mess with you is more than the cost of just eating bad charges.Now I look for that tell-tail free number to call for support. No number = no business from me - especially on a trial basis. Most companies don't seem to know or care about the sucessful suit against AOL for refusing to release members. A few more class action suits and more of these uncooperative companies WILL finally get the message.

[ordaj]

These companies do this to get a free loan out of their "customers." It's like the rebate scam where they know a certain percentage of people will not bother to redeem. They know that by making it hard to cancel people will pay or not dispute charges. And those that do, the companys will have had "use" of their money for 30 days or more. Yes, we need better oversight of these tactics.

[jah59]

Thanks for exposing these companies for what they are!

[rkinne01]

I work for a phone service that handles some calls of this nature and thought I offer some tips when canceling an account:1. Take detailed notes when speaking to company reps. Note the name of each person you talk to, note the date and time you call, and be clear on the date you want the service canceled. In short, WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING.2. Some of these companies have the capability to record your call for "quality assurance purposes", insist that they do so. You could also record the phone conversation yourself (check the legality of this in your state), generally so long as you tell the person on the other end of the line they are being recorded its legal.3. Notify your bank or credit card company that you've canceled your account and not to release any funds to them.4. Be friendly with the people you're dealing with, they often don't like the policies of thier employers anymore than you do. Getting nasty with an employee won't make anything any better and may make it worse. I get this on my job from time to time, people ask me to do things for them that I am not authorized to do, before I can even explain the situation to them I'm being called every four letter word you can think of. Still think I wanna help someone like that?5. Call earlier in the day. I find I get better service in the morning, not sure why but I do. Many companies have thier own employees answering the phones during part of the day then have an (offshore usually these days) answering service take the calls after hours. These answwering services mainly take only messages and can not deactivate an account for you, so beware.6.Call the BBB or your State Attroney General's Office if the services will not stop billing you. Not enough people complain, if these organizations don't know about the problem then they cannot help you.I closing, the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to make sure you keep records of each step of the process, that way if you end filing a claim with an attorney, the BBB, or the Attorney General then you'll have a much easier time proving your case. I should also mention that an employee may only be allowed to give a first name, if that is the case ask for his or her employee ID number. Hope this helps!

[ncgmcpherson]

rkinne01, that's good advice. In truth we should do this anytime business in done on the phone. That being said, you hit the problem on the head. You should NOT have to do all those steps. People's time is worth something, everyone's time is worth something. That's my problem with how these things are handled. Companies steal my valuable time for something they should just do. I do agree whole heartedly that we should not take it out on the person on the phone. The one exception in my experience with the gentleman from offshore who was lying to me and refusing to help me escalate the issue.

[rlivergood]

pcworld is the same way free trial then threatening letter to pay for a subscription that was supposed to be a trial looks like the cat calling the kettle black

[davidsco27]

Um, here's a clue to the uninformed:A. Always use a CREDIT CARD, NOT a Debit (sucker) Card.B. Call your credit card company and dispute the charge, and also inform them that any future charges from said company are fraudulent. End of story. Any major credit card company will reverse the charge.

[KellieCM]

rlivergood -- if you are having trouble with your subscriptions, please email customer_service@pcworld.com and they will straighten it out for you.

[davidsco27]

Nw if we could just get the annoying idiots to stop pestering us to sign up. Especially those who already subscribe.

[KellieCM]

workin on it... :)

[deadmeow]

Years ago I had bellsouth DSL, and canceled a Net Zero account. I canceled the Net Zero account, and then a few months later realized they had been billing me for a few months, it was a small charge, so it slipped by unoticed.I called to cancel it and they said it would be closed at the end of my paid month. A couple months later, I realized they were still charging me. I called to cancel it a second time. They asked if I had a cancelation number. I told them I wasn't given one, only I was told my account would be closed when that particular month (which was paid for) was over. They told me "I had changed my mind and kept Net Zero as a backup to my DSL". Thats strange, why would I keep a 2nd internet account as a backup? I had 50 hours a month of free dial up with bellsouth DSL, if the DSL ever went out, so obviously I had been scammed.Stay away from Net Zero and AOL. I am one of those people who is decent and honest to all those around me, and I just always expect that in return. :( Thats not how the work works.Jeff

[mtdabrow]

Isn't there a way to just call your bank/credit card company and tell them not to divert any more funds. If your bank fails to comply, just close your bank account and put your money elsewhere.As for billing, why not just not pay them. Rather than calling them, I would write them a letter, using their billing address, informing them that your not going to pay them. They can either A) try to sue and prove in the court of law why they think I owe them or B) send it to collections, in which case I would contact my states attorny general. Be sure to state that you would do so in your letter ahead of time and have it scanned.I am no lawyer, but this would be my advice. Any legal experts to tell me if I am right or wrong??

[buckwalter]

:(Going through all those hoops to get $10 refund is absurd. Time is money. Any service that requires two hours of hassles to cancel is robbing you more than just the subscription cost. I think these companies make it hard on purpose. It's not that they never consider people wanting to cancel. These companies just want recoup the cost of aquiring the customer before the customer figures out how to quit. There should be stronger consumer laws enforced online. These companies are ripping American's off billion a year in extra fees and no-show refunds and fine print BS. Where are you Federal Trade Comission? help

[Starlady01]

I myself use to hear of people's tells of AOL cancellations being so hard. Now that I have experienced it myself and I mean really experienced till I almost asked my doctor for some nerve pills. I only use AOL every once in a while to see how things are going with their free trial. Let me tell you one of the worst experiences I ever had was the last one. I cancelled it was done but after a month it started back up again :shock: Cancelled once again only to have them try to talk me into more. I would say NO and still got it. I will never try AOL again not even for free.Prior to this issue I was like I have never had problems with AOL what are you talking about. After my last time omg. I paid big time for signing up. Yes I got my money back but what a hassle.