AOL RIP-OFF BEWARE THEY DEBIT YOUR CHECKING ACCT AFTER YOU'VE REMOVED THE AUTHORIZATION Jacksonville Florida *UPDATE ..AOL just won't stop!
Beware of AOL...They will continue to steal money from your checking acct. We have tried to cancel with AOL several times and they just down right refuse to let you go.
Back in Feb AOL debited our checking acct for a month of service, which was to be FREE! We contacted them and they refused to reverse the charges. We went to our bank and told them it was an unauthorized debit and we wanted our money back. They did get that months charges back.
I had also contacted Consumer Protection in Raleigh, NC regarding the unauthorized debit. They contacted AOL and they told them that it had been resolved as the bank had requested a charge back and that we had "REMOVED ANY AUTHORIZATION TO THE CHECKING ACCT." Which meant they could not debit our acct again.
On May 17, they again debited our checking acct for another month of service, which they were to have cancelled on May 14.
My question is if they wrote to Consumer Protection and told them we had removed the authorization to debit the checking acct how do they have nerve to put it thru anyway??? This I will be addressing with my bank on Monday morning.
Be sure to thoroughly check your account once you have had a problem with them, as I see by the complaints on here that this could go on forever....and by god...I am going to see that this never happens to us again.
Steve & Lucy
, North Carolina
2 Updates & Rebuttals
April
Waldorf,Maryland,
Now we know were AOL gets the additional funds to keep running.
#3Consumer Suggestion
Fri, June 07, 2002
This is apparently their trade mark. We were in between ISP's back in July of 2001. We tried their FREE 6.0 for the 45 days. We had actually found a reliable ISP in about 20 days in and cancelled with AOL.
We got a bill 2 months ago for $196+ for ISP service. We wrote to them and told them we had cancelled and had a copy that it was cancelled. We thought it was really weird that we didn't hear anything all this time then suddenly had a bill.
They never acknowledged the letter so we called them, they said that we never cancelled and have an active e-mail account. That was news to us. We demanded that they fix it. Apparently they only hire the rudest and stupidest people they can find. She tells us that she can't fix it, we owed them money.
We argued and I threatened a law suit. Never heard anything since then. Now people know how AOL somehow always comes out of their money problems and isn't out of business yet.
AOL JUST WON'T STOP!
#30
Fri, June 07, 2002
After I filed the previous report on AOL, I wrote to Consumer Protection again as they had been told by AOL that we had removed all authority for them to debit the checking account. I have yet to hear back from them.
On May 19, 2002 we received a letter from AOL stateing we had cancelled our internet service effective 5-17-02, BUT it would still be active until the billing date of 6-13-02 which I specifically told them not to do...I told them to cancel it flat. That is just another way they do business. We are not using it anyway since we have removed it completely from the hard drive. In the letter it states we can still reactivate the account after 6-13-02 if we desire....NO WAY IN HELL!!!!
On May 20, 2002 we received a credit back to our checking account from our bank, not AOL...they had to go back and get it reversed from them. At any rate, I got it back and I didn't really care where it came from.
On May 23, 2002 I sent my complaint to Action 9, my local television station that deal with CROOKS like this. I sure hope it gets attention as everyone needs to know what they TRY to do to you unless you stand on firm ground.
SO today June 6, 2002 we get a bill in the mail from AOL for $28.90 stating that our internet service has been suspended for non payment.....WELL HELL YES!!! Finally got cancelled....BUT now they want a payment for last month....stating it is a charge that will stick....I explained to her that we had not used the internet service since the middle of April and I was not paying for something that was supposed to be FREE until May 13...she argued and I argued right back....She finally put me on hold and came back on the line and said she had spoken to her supervisor and they would be giving a credit for that month...even though we had received several months of free service and she stated that AOL is not in the habit of giving free service....I told her they absolutely were as I had been trying to cancel the service since last December and they always offer free months to keep it on the books....She was not very happy.....but at least by standing my ground she will issue a credit.....and like I told her she best do that because there was no way I was paying the bill no matter how small......
My advise is to keep on them until you get what you want...no matter how long it takes....it took us 7 months to get this cancelled but at least they have finally done it!!!! HORRAY!