AOL agrees to customer service reform

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AOL customer treatment

Following is an e-mail I just sent to AOL:

I have been an AOL member for about 11 years. My monthly fees are automatically charged to a credit card and, to the best of my knowledge, have always been paid promptly.

When I tried to sign on to AOL today, I was unable to do so. Instead,
I received a pop up message with words to the effect: "Your next contact may be from a billing agency." There was a link requesting me to enter credit card information. Because I had received no prior notification of a billing problem, because of the urgency and tone of the pop up, and because I assumed that my long time Internet service provider would never send such a hostile message, I concluded it was a pfishing scheme or some kind of computer virus. I was concerned about calling the telephone number in the pop up, fearing that it was part of a fraudulent attempt to acquire my credit card numbers. Instead, I called AOL technical support. I then learned, to my absolute amazement, that this pop up really did come from AOL. Apparently, my credit card expiration date had not been updated and AOL was unable to process my November payment. Instead of asking me to update my credit card information, AOL cut off my service after two weeks, sent a pop up message making me sound like a deadbeat and, in effect, threatened to turn my account over to a collection agency.

After calling AOL technical support and getting back online, I found an e-mail message that arrived while my service was cut off. The e-mail was directed to "Dear Valued Member" and did not have the blue border that supposedly appears on all legitimate AOL messages. The e-mail requested my credit card number. This e-mail also appeared to be part of a pfishing scheme as it lacks the security features that AOL constantly reminds me to look for.

AOL's actions are a pretty clear demonstration that you have very little regard for your customers. My eleven years of AOL membership obviously count for nothing. I am insulted and outraged by the pop up message I received and by the temporary suspension of my service. With AOL's many competitors, I am amazed that you can afford to treat customers in such a high handed and demeaning manner.

I am requesting that you forward this message to AOL's top management. The representatives I talked to on the telephone stated that they could not provide any names, e-mail addresses or postal addresses for me to write to them myself.

From my experience, making management so inaccessible to customers is one more indication of a company with backwards priorities and a very poor prognosis for the future.

Posted by: Brownsf   Posted on: 11/24/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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