Cancelling AOL?

aless02

Hi,
W're moving house next week and we're trying to cancel our AOL broadband because we want Virgin in the new place. Now, we originally had an 18-month contract for 2mbps at £14.99/month. When that was running out, we got a leaflet in the post saying, 'thanks for being a loyal customer, we'd like to upgrade your speed to 8 mbps' blahblah. So my husband called them and said that's great, because the speed we've been getting is really crap. They told us that the catch was we had to also sign up for AOL Talk & a new contract. He told them he didn't want a new contract but that AOL Talk was okay.

Went away for a few days and called back saying we'd take the deal but wanted a better price. They offered £9.99 for 8 mbps & AOL Talk - but we didn't realise that this had locked us into a new contract (since he had told them before he didn't want a new contract).

Anyway, long story short now we're trying to cancel and they're saying we have to pay the remaining 11 months of the new contact!! We've been customers for 2 years and this is pathetic.

Our grounds are that we have NOT received an improvement to speed and therefore we were misled - in fact, the internet seems SLOWER than we were on the 2mbps plan. The call centre says we have to formally complain in writing.

Has anyone succeeded in a similar situation? We just want to be able to cancel without paying for remaining months. We' haven't been getting the service we're paying for and are disgusted they want over £100 just to let us go.

Help!

macman

I can't advise you on the contract issue, but maybe you should ask them to review the tape of the second call. But any change in price invariably means you are locked into a new contract, otherwise they wouldn't do it-why would they?
On the linespeed, no ISP will guarantee you 8MBps on an ADSL service, the offer is up to 8MB. If the maximum your line will support is 2MB, then that's all you get. It's due to distance from exchange, line quality, your internal wiring etc, and these are not factors within AOL's control. Of course if you were told you could get more than 2MB, then you have a case for complaint.
What line speed are you actually getting?-you need to test it and advise them, just saying it seems slower will not get you very far with them.

aless02

I've searched before and our line is capable of receiving 5MB according the BT exchange checker.

I've done speed tests and while never documenting exact results, we've fairly consistantly gotten in the region of 1-1.5 mbps - even after the "upgrade".

So basically it seems like my best bet is to complain that we're getting poor service and this is a reason to let us out of the contract? Doubt they'll go for it, but it's worth a try...

macman

The BT checker is purely an estimate based on geographic distance from the exchange, it takes no account of the actual wire distance or any other factors. Have you tried plugging into your BT master socket and retesting the speed? This will eliminate any slowdown caused by your extension wiring, if any.
If no improvement then you may have a case for complaint to AOL. But unless they gave you some guarantee of better speed, then they're not in breach of contract. The crucial phrase is 'up to'.
It won't get you out of your contract, you have to complain and give them the opportunity to put it right first. To get released from your contract you will need to prove that you were not aware that you were starting a new contract.

willo65

I would just take AOL with me, I think the connection and service are normally excellent. i say normally based on your probs above but I have heard no end of complaints about Virgins service and my sis-in-law is always having connection problems with them.