Complaint Review: America On-line

Carla at AOL demanded payment for a closed account and said I would not get a credit because I did not talk nicely to her.

Back in December of 2001, I made a mistake and turned one of my AOL sub accounts into an individual account. Not realizing what I have done until I noticed double billing on my credit card statement. I called AOL around December 19 or 20th, and expalined to them what I had done was a mistake. I was told by aol's customer service rep Maryann that, I would not be charged and the sub account was returned back to the primary account. I was also told I should check back in three days to see if the account was closed. I did not check back in three days. I assumed they knew what hey were doing.

So I let it go and in February of 2002, I saw they were still double billing me. I called AOL and I spoke to Maryann again and she told me that they would credit my account and I would not be billed for two months that they charged me. So the next time I would be billed by them would be May 20, 2002. I agreed to it. But then after a half an hour I changed my mind and called them back and asked them to just issue a credit to my credit card company. They told me they could not do that because I already agreed to their idea.

They never mentioned issuing a credit to my credit card. I became angry and called my credit card company to dispute the charges and after 14 days I was issued a credit for te overpayment.

On April 25, 2002, I received a letter in the mail from AOL which said on the envelope "SECOND NOTICE" (I never received a first notice). They were deamding payment for two months. So on April 29, 2002 a 9:45 pm I called the phone number on the bill. I spoke to a customer service reprsentative named CARLA. She started off talking very nice to me. Then when I was tryng to question how is it possible they are asking me for payment when the issue was already resolved. She beacame very rude which imediatley put me on the defensive.

She then told me and I quote "Do you think being rude to me will get you a credit". When I heard that I was shocked. I then said "wait a minute, you mean to tell me that if am nice to you then I get a credit". She told me it was all up to her as to whether or not I get the credit. She then said "And I am not going to give you a credit beacuse you are rude". At that point I was ready to expolde, so rather than get really angry and rip the phone out, I hung the phone to cool off.

When I told my wife what had just happened she had called them right back (not more than two minutes), and spoke to Ross. My wife asked if he was Carla's Supervisor. He said yes, so she told him what had just transpired. He said he would deal with her and the bill would be erased.

The reason why I a writting this letter is because in all my life, never have I heard a customer service representative tell a paying client that if you talk nicley to me then I'll give you the cedit. I want this SOB CARLA to get in big trouble, who can I write to?

Thank you,

Peter
Rockaway Park, New York