It was not sincere.

They have been fined for this ad-nauseum and everyone at AOL is well-aware of the practice. When you get sued by 3 different states, then you become very aware of the problem.

He apologized for PR reasons.

The same thing is happening to 1,000 people as I type this, but they just don’t have the forethought to tape it, or a website on which to post it.

AOL was sorry. Sorry they get caught.

Then know that this will die down in a week, and it will be business as usual.

No credit ever appeared in my bank account, but they did charge my account again. When I called and spoke to the cancelation department, I was told that the 1st credit was denied, but that it would be coming in 30 days. (yes, I typed that correctly). I was also told that they would credit my bank account for the second charge, and that it would take up to seven days. After seven days, when I called, to ask about the credit, I was told it could take up to 30 days for the credit be issued. I told them to cancel my account, and after an hour and a half; resulting in my having to scream and ask for a supervisor, my account was cancelled.

I then called my bank, and contested the charges, provided the bank with the e-mails and letters verifying my claim, and they reversed the charges. I should have dealt with my bank, not AOL.

Kudos to you. You were able to accomplish what I was unable to do for eight months.

What world do you live in? I mean, you from NYC! Don’t let these AOL virus aholes get away with ‘we so sorry. we immoliated the ‘John’ that used to work for us. That will solve the problem. Hope you is happy’.

Unbelievable. Hopefully you are very young, in your 20’s or so. You’ve got an edge to you that I understand. But you have this 15 minutes of fame. If you sell out, twenty years from now, you will seriously regret it. The way to handle this is to do what that *edge* tells you to do!

Explain how AOL is a virus, how they track every move you make on the internet; how it is *OBVIOUS* company policy to train the ‘Johns’, since I ditched my AOL account in 1996, and got pretty much the same BS that you got. Just a different day, my man.

So do the right thing. Tell the EVP or whatever the f he is that he’s full of s. That the person he needs to fire is himself. Since he and his ilk promote that policy.

And, oh, BTW, don’t forget to put in a word or two about the freaking cable and baby bell monopoly/oligopoly we got going on here. I’ve been where you are right now dude. I did the wrong thing. You are primpin’ on the ‘Today show’ thing and all, and you’ll go in there and they’ll tell you what little, very small, window of things they want to say.

And if you just KA and do that, you’re just another ‘John’ who just ain’t working for AOL just now…

I can only take people on their word. I’m a good Catholic boy from the Bronx and that’s the way I live. That doesn’t mean I’m naive or crazy either, but I don’t doubt the sincerity of the letter, despite its impersonality (most of it was a statement that was previously issued).

We’ll see if things change. Something tells me this story isn’t going away as easily as they would like it to.

I appreciate your publishing the call and talking about it. I had a very similar experience last night with AOL though. Unfortunately, I just read the article about your experience this morning, or I would have also recorded the call. Reading this makes me feel kind of sorry for the guy who you talked to who got fired. What he did (at least judging by all the response to your article) was clearly in accordance with AOL policy and he seems to have been made a scapegoat because of the publicity. In the meantime, AOL just continues to harass people who want to cancel their accounts. Too bad that they apparently haven’t really learned anything from this.

I wonder what others think or if they’ve faced such problems with Netzero too. With the whole dial-up internet market’s pie decreasing in size, these ISP’s better increase their retention rate through better customer satisfaction, not this way.

Saw you on CNBC today, man. I liked your response when you were asked if your next mission was to take on Sprint and others listed!

Lies, lies, lies!

Good luck to you, Vincent. Just be sure to check your credit card statements for years to come.

Randy