AOL - Grrrrrrr

[gooner4life]

My friend signed up for AOL as it was pre-installed on a laptop he bought from PC World, he used the service once and phoned to cancel during the 30 day free trial, he got given a cancellation number, and thought that was that, he gets his quarterly bank statement today and AOL have taken 35 pounds from him.

So I call on his behalf (pretending to be him as he gets walked all over) they first refuse to give him his money back as they were providing an account to him even though they could see it had been signed into once, they then cancel the account and agree to credit his money back after 30 minutes on the phone and then proceed to offer us further services at a discounted rate or on free trials.

Where do these idiots get off?

[handyman]

And the point?

Your friend signed up for the service used it and decided to cancel. Aol agreed to cancel it but for some reason did not cancel the payment. You phoned up (and lets not forgot broke the law by pretending to be someone else fraudulently) and after persuasion the cancelled the contract. Now they are a company that offers services so they offered them to you them at discounted rates or on free trial.

I can't see a problem with it?

Welcome to AOL ... they were equally as inept with my in-laws, who needed to change their account details because they had had their credit card stolen so needed to register a new card with AOL for payment. They ended up with two entirely separate accounts with AOL and AOL sending them red bills on the first one as they could no longer collect payment on the cancelled card.

So far as I can tell, AOL only collects payment on a card; you can't arrange a direct debit. I make it a personal rule in my financial affairs not to deal with companies that insist on you signing up to recurring card payments as you have no control subsequently over those payments and you are effectively at the mercy of the service provider, which in AOL's case I think is a very bad thing. With a Direct Debit, you always have the option of going direct to your bank to cancel it and merely informing the service provider afterwards. Your bank cannot cancel a credit/debit card mandate.

[Stephen]

I have always stayed well clear of AOL myself.