Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

Maria, when I cancelled my AOL service, it was like pulling teeth just to get it over with. They kept offering me more free months and I kept saying no, no, no. Finally there was an awkward pause. Then the CSR said, "Okay-thank-you-your-confirmation-number-is-8675309" or some such, and then hung up.

I really, really hope AOL has improved their customer service protocol since then (that was in 2003).

Easton,

I wonder...Maybe I should sign up again and call back to cancel to see what they say :)

~Maria

Great idea Maria! ;)

Maria

To answer your question about whether their employees get commissions for "keeping" customers, the answer is 'yes they do'. Very nasty company and I can't figure out for the life of me how they have a single customer.

Yes, now it's all starting to come together.... That's sad that they have to resort to attacking people - how can they keep people that way?

~Maria

Well- I just called aol to cancel my service, after not using them for the past 5 months and still paying @$29 per month. (Because I put things off) Some dick named "Johnny" starts giving me the third degree. I said that I only wanted to cancel my service, knowing that these people always try to keep you by offering all sorts of things you didn't know existed until you are on hold forever trying to cancel. After listening to his stupid questions that are none of his business, I told him I have no home computer any longer, he asked why. So I told him I only want to cancel, again.. He asked again, why? So I told him I fed it to my dogs. Then he refused to finish the cancel process until I answered the question. I asked him to talk with his manager, and you can guess what response I got.. NO.. After hanging up, I have come to the conclusion, if I ever were so fortunate to meet 'Johnny', I would feed him his phone headset, along with list of stupidass questions he has to rudely ask. DOWN WITH AOL!! Were we not the customers who these terds rely on for their paychecks?

I have to give you some background so you can understand what is going on with AOL'S CAT employees in India. Also we get a lot of religious right individuals (without profiles) who come into the room to report people just to close down the room and prevent (put the fear of G-D or should I say AOL'S CAT) in them.

I am a gay man living with hiv. I only used aol to chat with other gay men with hiv in their hivm4m room. Since AOL has decided to outsource their CAT department to India suddely guys in that chat room, including myself, try to log on and find out we have been reported for some stupid thing we have said. Things you hear on day time TV, even on children shows.

One time I was quoting, from the NY Times, where a famous female personality referred to herself as a "butch dyke". The next day I went to log on and found my account was frozen. So I called AOL's CAT and got someone in India and they informed me that someone reported me for saying "Butch Dyke". The AOL employee had such a thick Indian accent, I had trouble understanding him. In turn, I got the impression he didn't understand/comphrenhend what I was saying; especially when he said that using the phrase "butch dyke" is offensive and vulgar. At that point I said I wanted to close my AOL account. He said ok and switched me to Billing. When the person in billing, who was an American, and told her why I was "Tossed", she was amazed but not surprised, it seems. She didn't find anything vulgar or offensive in it. She even said she has heard worse on daytime tv or even in the Times Newspaper, which I was quoting from (remember the phrase, "... NY Times anything that is fit to print". She then offered me 3 months free and reduced my monthly payments (I don't use aol for my direct internet connection) to 7.95 instead of 14.95.

Within a week, I was Tossed 3 times within 24 hours. Again, I got billing and the sum total of free time was 6 months.

Last January, I went online and again I was Tossed. I called AOL's CAT and got someone in India again. He told me I threatened someone's life. Can you imagine my shock. I used powertools, which is an add on program ontop of aol. This program, has many functions, such as Instant message chat logs and room chat logs. As I am trying to find out when and what I said that was taken as a physical threat, I searched my logs. It seems a guy wanted to meet me, and I said, "Do you ever get into the city, if you do I will be on the watch for you" He responded "do you want to meet? And I said yes. When I told this to the cat employee, he said, "we only see what you said, nothing before or after. I responded by saying something to the affect, you mean you took what I said out of context? He didn't know what I meant (shocker!) Obviously someone come in the middle of the chat room conversation and reported me; either that, or some religious right wing zelot was offended that I wanted to meet this person for a possible "gay date".

I then asked to speak to someone who is in the USA. He got very very nasty and told me I had to deal with him, and that if I wanted my account reinstated I would have to apologize to him. I said lots of luck with that, and he hung up. I then called biling and told them (again got a person in the USA).
She said that she would open my account but someone in CAT put a notation that it can only be re-instated by someone in the CAT department. She added that if I close my account, my debit card will be charged $14.95 for early cancelation due to the fact they gave me a reduce rate that was suppose to be for a year. I told her try and collect.

After hanging up I sent their home office a fax cancelling my account, then called my bank and had my debt card cancelled and have a new one issued with a new number.

I still speak to many guys that still go into the chat room. I hear that many guys get reported for using biological and medical terms (remember we are living with hiv and medical problems associated not only with HIV but with side affects from HIV related medications (which can be more devistating than having HIV). Such words as penis, testicle atrophie from taking testerones steriods, rectum, flactuation from medication, just to mention a few are valid enough to have you "tossed"

BTW if you search the net, you will find that India is one of the most homophbic countries in the world. That even a gay man or woman in India is found guilty of being gay, they can be sentenced to hard labor for a minium of 10 yrs. Indian officals have been found to entrap Indian gay men and lesbians on the net, just so they can find out who they are and have them arrested. These are the same people who aol employees to monitor chat rooms.

A gay man could have almost the same information in his profile as a straight man, the only difference is that he is gay, and his profile will suddenly disappear because CAT employees in India find it offensive. Gay men having pictures showing a bear chest or wearing a jock strap or a brief bathing suit in their profile, will suddenly find it replaced with an Iris flower.

I will never use AOL and go so far as not buy a product that outsources their jobs to people in other countries. THAT IS SO UNAMERICAN, in my humble opinion. Years ago, many mfg jobs went overseas and people lost their job and got retrained on computers. Now these same people are laid off and their jobs got to India (and soon to Latin American counties). Now they want to outsource many of the Sea ports on the Eastern Seaboard to a company subsidized by the UAE (United Arab Emerate), What next, how about outsourcing the President and Vice President of the USA to Ben Ladin or some other person of that caliber.

Wow - I definitely learned something new today.... I'm not familiar with the culture in India and it's terrible that AOL is allowing this to happen. I highly recommend writing a letter to the CEO. You never know what'll happen and it never hurts to take some action.

This makes me rethink my opinion of outsourcing to other countries. The cultural difference is a very big thing. At the same time I believe in spreading the wealth. The U.S. is such a rich country and if we can help people in other countries live a better life....

What it boils down to is that people should really mind their own business and stop worrying about how other people live their lives. The internet is free for all to communicate how they want. If people find things offensive, well, they should just simply stay away :)

Thanks for your insight...

~Maria Palma

I had a very similar experience with AOL; it took me a half hour to cancel my account because they kept asking me ridiculous questions as to why i wasn't keeping the service and every time i gave an answer they'd tried to sell me a different plan of theirs. I kept saying no and she started trying to send me to websites like yours did. I got tired of being polite and told her that i was NOT changing my mind and she should discontinue me RIGHT NOW. I hate to raise my voice but it was the only way i got through to her.

Ironically enough, when i went to cancel MSN internet i had an incredibly easy time. I made the call expecting the same runaround that i did from AOL. When the rep asked me why i was cancelling service i flat out told them that while i understood it was their job, i wasn't interested and just wanted to cancel. They laughed and told me they weren't going to try to make me stay if i didn't want to. She joked that she was afraid to speak to me now because i might yell at her. We both had a laugh about it and i apologized for being so rude; account was closed and we wished each other a nice day.

Lisa,

AOL will do anything to keep people nowadays. Generally speaking, nobody wants to lose any business and I can understand AOL's probably frantic right now because everybody is switching to high-speed cable and DSL. Why pay $23.90 for slow service when I can get high speed for only a little more?

~Maria

I had a hard time canceling my aol account too. Now that I have DSL I'm so much happier because customer service is so much better at verizon. Just to inform everyone though, Verizon DSL is cheaper than AOL. I'm not sure why anyone in their right mind would stay with them. Verizon has better service, better product and it's cheaper!

I TRIED TO UP GRADE. ONE MONTH I CALLED EVERY OTHER DAY. PUT ON HOLD .HOW MANY TIMES. ? HOW LONG? ONE TIME I DID MY DISHES WHILE WAITING BEFORE HANGING UP.. NEXT TIME I WAS ON PHONE 1HR 45MINS .ASKED QUESTIONS ,SOCIAL SECURITY, DRIVERS LICENCE , EXTRA THEN BIRTHDAY, HUSBANDS ALSO. THEN I WAS TOLD THINGS JUST DONT COME UP AND COULD NOT UP GRADE ON AOL OR COMCAST WHO THEY SUGESTED IN THE 1ST PLACE ....DOSE MANAGEMENT EVER READ THESE?
I,VE BEEN WITH AOL OVER 2 YEARS WHAT DO THEY MEAN DONT COME UP...