AOL charges?

[Russ Smith]

My girlfriend's co-worker just got a shock. Her 8th grade daughter took one of those free AOL CD's, installed it, and used it half of January and all of Feb.
When the January phone bill came they had a $400 bill. Turns out that AOL was connecting to the "local" numbers but their system isn't smart enough to know that just because she lives in Area code 408, not ALL 408 numbers are local. They live in Santa Clara, AOL was connecting to a 408 number that's in Gilroy, so AT&T was billing them long distance. Remember that's for HALF a month, they're still waiting on the February bill which is a full month of AOL calling Gilroy.

AOL of course is refusing responsibility, not our problem talk to AT&T they give us the local numbers. AT&T initially refused to help, after she called a local news guy who helps consumers(Michael Finney) they offered to cut the $400 bill in half but haven't said anything about the Feb bill which presumably will be essentially double.

I've heard AOL is extremely difficult to cancel which is the whole idea behind those cd's, they're banking on you forgetting when it goes from free to costing, and then taking months to cancel.

 

[NavyVet]

Wow! Just from first glance at this, it sounds like it more the fault of ATT for not providing AOL with numbers for all areas of area code 408. But then again, how ******** it is to have anything but local dialing within an area code anyway. I used AOL many moons ago, isn't there a way to check your current billing online?

 

[nidan]

Also another AOL warning.

If you buy a Dell PC, you automaticly get an AOL account. Dell passes your credit card info to AOL who setup an account. 3 months later you start getting bills.

It's even worse, if somebody you never heard of in Memphis bought the PC from Dell on your card Stopped that, new card but the AOL service made it to the new card, just stopped that as well.

On my third new Amex in 6 months

 

[Russ Smith]

Wow! Just from first glance at this, it sounds like it more the fault of ATT for not providing AOL with numbers for all areas of area code 408. But then again, how ******** it is to have anything but local dialing within an area code anyway. I used AOL many moons ago, isn't there a way to check your current billing online?

Yes the 408 with Gilroy thing is stupid. I used to have Webtv and had it happen there too, it would dial local numbers and if busy it would keep dialing and not only did it used to connect to Gilroy, it sometimes would calling 415 or 510 numbers.

She should be able to check her bill online, she should have it by now but apparently she hasn't and doesn't know how to check it online.

AT&T says that they're not to blame, that AOL's system just essentially grabs a bunch of numbers and isn't smart enough to know which 408 numbers are local and which ones were Gilroy. AOL says the numbers are given to them from AT&T.

She's a single mom so she doesn't have much chance against such large companies.

 

[BigRedVol]

This all gives new meanings to AOHELL

 

[CaptTurbo]

People still use aol?

 

[jerryp]

People still use aol?

Yes, as it turns out, people are still dumb.

 

[Ryanwb]

Also another AOL warning.

If you buy a Dell PC, you automaticly get an AOL account. Dell passes your credit card info to AOL who setup an account. 3 months later you start getting bills.

It's even worse, if somebody you never heard of in Memphis bought the PC from Dell on your card Stopped that, new card but the AOL service made it to the new card, just stopped that as well.

On my third new Amex in 6 months

When you purchase the PC from Dell there is an option you can check that says, "I do not need an ISP". It is pretty much that simple......