America Online AOL billed me over $300.00 for one month, during my free service period! mistreated and ripped off Jacksonville Florida

I had been an AOL customer for the past 3-4 years and had an unlimited billing plan of $23.90 per month. A few months ago a charge appeared on my credit card in the amount of $567.82 for my AOL service. I immediately called AOL customer service (which took over 40 minutes on hold to reach a supervisor) only to be told that my billing plan had been changed to a limited plan which included being charged by the hourly rate. I did not authorize a change in my billing plan and have no idea how this happened. The supervisor whom I spoke with was very condescending and rude and insisted that the billing plan had been changed via my screen name and at my address, however he could not send me any proof supporting that. He basically told me that the bill was my responsibility but after 45 minutes of argument agreed to credit the amount debited back to my credit card (which turned out to be a lie, as the credit never showed up). I resorted to filing a complaint through my credit card company and they were able to return my money. Interesting too that the supervisor who handled my complaint said that they have many customers with the same complaint regarding their AOL bill.
Shame on you AOL. Apparantly you stoop to these tactics all the time. The amount of money that you stole from me was only a drop in the bucket to you...it was a fortune to me! Your greed has cost you to lose me as a customer, and every one that I know.

The previous Rebuttal and what the original author experienced is the classic AOL plan. If you are no longer signed on with them, GOOD. You might even want to change numbers to any credit cards they had access to, because they will try to sneak in a bill.

When my husband and I quit AOL, they tried to continue billing us. By the time I called my credit card company to dispute the charge, the customer service rep KNEW, and was angry at AOL for doing this over and over again. He said that people are constantly getting charged, after they have resigned. They banking on customers not paying attention or imagining it is a bill from a previous month.

They may not be a big time company for long. A lot of people are unhappy with their services. Some sites BAN AOL members, because AOL has no control over their own members or don't care. I learned this from a local Microsoft Certified Technician. We took our computer to him to have AOL cleaned out of our system. This Technician recommended a good online service, that I've been using ever since: www.localnet.com, from out of Buffalo, NY. I only pay $10 a month for unlimited access, and can do ANYTHING an AOL member can, and possibly more. The Service Technician said AOL clutters and slows down your system. He also stated that 60% of the viruses out there on the World Wide Web are generated by AOL members alone.

Since, your computer is new, maybe you could make a good clean start, with someone else. I couldn't even share half of what my husband and I went through with this rip-off.

I hope you don't have to pay that $300

AOL always has free offers to sign up with them. They then bill you before your free time has completed. I ran into this frequently while a was and Amex CSR.

At least twice a day I received a complaint from a customer that had signed up with AOL and was still suppose to be in their "FREE" period and they had been billed. Also, when they had canceled their service AOL would continue to bill them for at least 3 mo. Of course we would credit their account and reverse it but what a hassle for the customer.

AOL also selles their customers name for telemarketing. They offer promos to their customers with a free trial period. The customers are always charged during the trial.

I suggest you go to your bank and immedialtly dispute these charges. The ones that went into your computer to change your service was AOL themselves. I don't know of anyway a person could change their service when you are on free trial with out some warning coming up saying something like..."YOU HAVE OPTED TO CHANGE YOUR SERVICE PLAN AND YOU WILL NO LONGER HAVE YOUR SERVICE FOR FREE. YOU WILL BE CHARGED ...."

Even if you had selected the limited usage it still should have been free.