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AOL - Warning/Advice for cancelling by email
theteapot
Posts: 2 Newbie
Hi,
Im extrememly annoyed with AOL. So im going to make a post giving people some advice that i hope is useful.
Having been upset by the call-centre service in the past, and not wanting AOL getting money from my phone call I decided to
cancel via email via their cancellations page;
here it requests the these details:
Your full name
Your master screen name
The last four digits of the credit card, debit card or bank account number you provided when you registered with AOL Broadband
Your day and evening contact telephone numbers
I sent my request via the web-form with the details outlined above.
This is where it begins to get interesting; why is there a specific web-form and not a simple system of sending an email with these details?
It occured to me later that the customer has no record of what is passed through a web-form as would be the case in outlook express' sent items folder for example.
Anyway my request gets a response saying that i have payed for a month so cancel before next billing date.
OK. day before next bill date, I went to the bank and cancelled my DD to AOL. Filled another cancellations webform. And left it there. I beieve i had some sort of automated response from AOL but nothing concrete. A day or 2 later i check and see that the connection is indeed down, and this confirms in my mind that the cancellation procedure is complete.
A short while later I got an email saying that my payment details needed updating. I then filled in the cancellation web-form again and completed a customer satisfaction survey.
Fast forward ~3 months and I get a Final Warning Bill for £45. Threatening me with collection agency if not settled within 10 days. I had not received any emails from AOL during this time or letters etc.
I then call customer services. Im sure most of you know the drill here.....anyway the customer service guy denies ANY request
for cancellation. He then says that cancellations MUST be confirmed over the phone. This is clearly not stated on the
webpage, it says that they 'may respond' to you..........
I feel quite sure that legally this does not make clear that you
cannot cancel by email alone.
My advice here is to download camstudio and screen capture youself sending these details; you will then have evidence for a complaint.
I had actually requested the cancellation about 3-4 times. I spoke to around 4 or 5 customer service staff who all denied any
existence of them.
I then requested a supervisor callback that obviously didnt materialise.
Next I sent a written letter of complaint by recorded delivery.
I continue via email this time as the phone calls are hopeless. I have worked as a technical support agent for a well known
ISP so I asked them some uncomfortable questions;
EMAIL Q1 to AOL
Hi
,
Thanks for the quick reply. Will that give me more time with my outstanding bill. Can you please be very clear and specific
about this matter as AOL are threatening to
call in a money collection company.
If you are not sure, could you please give me contact details of somebody who will know.
Thanks.
my name.
ANSWER 1 from AOL 1
Dear myname,
Thank you for contacting AOL Broadband. I have reviewed your email and I will certainly be able to help you with your query
today.
On checking the account I can confirm that your account has been canceled at this time and no additional payment will be
added to outstanding amount in question. In relation to the outstanding amount in question I must advise that as we operate
on an automated billing system your account may be passed to a collection agency before your written complaint is dealt with.
The automated billing system cannot be suspended or altered as once an outstanding amount is identified on an account the
account passes through several steps before it is passed to a collection agency for payment. As your account has already
passed through our internal collection team and contact has been made with yourself through an outbound call and a letter
dispatched the next step is to move the account to the collection agency and unfortunately no agent of AOL Broadband can
alter this.
I would advise connecting our customer care team on 0844 4995555 as your earliest convenience to clear the outstanding amount
and once cleared you can persue your written complaint to reclaim the monies paid. Following an investiagtion if your claim
for a refund is approved it will take up to 30 days for the money to be refunded to you.
I hope that the information provided can assist you with your query. If you require any further assistance please don't
hesitate to contact us through the Live help forum.
Kind regards,
aol rep name,
AOL Broadband Member Services.
EMAIL Q2 to AOL
Dear aol rep,
'As your account has already passed through our internal collection team and contact has been made with yourself through an
outbound call and a letter dispatched the next step is to move the account to the collection agency and unfortunately no
agent of AOL Broadband can alter this. '
The final warning was the first letter that i recieved. Nobody ever sent one single letter or email about it previously. Why
is that?
Also, no contact was made with me by outbound call. Somebody called my mother's number and then hung up the telephone when
she came to find me.
Regarding the quote above; does that mean that nobody in AOL has the power to stop a payment being passed to a collection
agency? That is not true. Even a low/mid-level manager would have the power of such a decision. I think that refers to
general call-centre workers, not managers.
I have worked in call-centres so i dont really take that as true, if it were then the collection agency would be running
AOL??
Are there senior managers located there or just call-centre supervisors? My guess is just supervisors with maybe 1 or 2 more
senior managers visiting occasionally once or twice a week? Please answer this question, it is very important.
Obviously it is in my best interests to clear the balance and then claim back the money, so what is the outstanding amount
and has it already been passed to a collection agency. what is the status of this account?
Also, I am aware of my right to access all the information that you hold about me for a small fee (approx £10). How does AOL
deal with this procedure? I will probably need to follow this path and would like to know exactly how to proceed.
You have been very helpful.
Thanks
myname.
ANSWER 2 from AOL
Dear myname,
Thank You for your reply.
The current balance outstanding on your account is £44.97. If this is not paid then we would be within our rights to pass on
to a Collection Agency. We would not be in a position to stop this from happening due to the fact it is a valid bill. I can
confirm we have Supervisors and Managers located here in this Call Centre but again as the bill is valid we would not be in a
position to stop this bill from moving along the Collections process we have in place.
I have had a look through your emails from earlier this year. I can see you did send in a cancellation request back in March,
we replied to you advising you of your billing date and confirming that as you were paid up until that date you can keep your
account active until that date. And after that date to contact us and we will then fully cancel the account. This was not
done. You emailed again later that month asking when they last payment for your account was taken and you were advised of an
outstanding balance and how to pay this. At no point in these emails were you advised your AOL account was cancelled and you
were advised of an issue with your billing.
As it stands at the moment your AOL account is cancelled and 3 months remain outstanding on your AOL account. It has not yet
been passed to any Collection Agency.
If you wish to request a copy of your account histories you can do so. To do so you need to send a letter in containing the
following information:
State what information it is that you require i.e. a copy of your account histories
Cheque for £10 made payable to TalkTalk Group. Note: this is to cover postage and packaging.
Your Name, Address, AOL email address and your phone number
Proof of ID (Photocopy of either Passport, Drivers License, Utility Bill or Birth Cert)
And a contact number.
Please send to the following address
TalkTalk/ AOL,
Data Protection Office,
P.O. Box 390 ,
Southampton ,
SO30 9AQ
Just to be aware this request can take up to 40 days to be processed
Thank You for contacting AOL Broadband. Should you have any further questions please don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards
aol staff member.
Q3 to AOL
Hello,
Previous to your last email, I had spoken to at least 4 customer service staff at the call centre who all denied ANY requests
from me regarding cancellation.
I then make you aware of my right to obtain the information that you hold on me, and then suddenly you admit that a request
was sent.
In light of this, how can I trust anything that I am told?
How come ANY request for a cancellation was denied by ALL staff that I spoke to over the phone?
You mention the email last sent to me ; 'You emailed again later that month asking when they last payment for your account
was taken and you were advised of an outstanding balance and how to pay this'
Can you please send a copy of this email as I dont remember being advised of an outstanding balance. You claim that the
outstanding balance is 'valid'. If that is true you will not hesitate to send me all correspondence between youselves and me
during the whole month of April then I can happily pay and the matter will be resolved.
Any company with a 'valid' oustanding payment would be happy to provide this information to a customer, if the said company
had not made any errors. Do you agree?
Have I accessed that account 1 or more times during the times that I have been charged for?
Why is the web-based cancellations procedure web-form based and not email based?
I would like to know the name of the database software used in the call-centre to log customer calls/emails. Assuming you use
one of course.
How many different call centre staff did I speak to last week?
Please can you have a manager answer all my questions, it is very important.
Thank you very much.
Regards.
my name.
p.s. i am resigned to paying this balance. and would like to do so with some degree of confidence after receiving some very
basic information from AOL.
ANSWER 3 from AOL
Contact AOL Broadband Member Services via the online help form
Thank you for contacting AOL Broadband Member Services. This is an automated email. To contact us via email, you must submit
your query at ***cant post the link at the moment***. If you reply to this email, you will get this automated response again.
The only way to contact Member Services via mail is through the link above
** Note; i then sent Q3 via the webform (i recording myself submitting the document with camstudio). Basically the email
address that we had been using had *suddenly* become unavailable.
ANSWER 4 from AOL
Good afternoon myname,
I have reviewed your account using the information that you provided. I
had a look through the histories in order to find a cancellation. What I
did find was that you contacted us wanting to cancel but as the date was
just three days after your billing date the agent advised you that it
would be best to cancel on the following billing date. Hence, no
cancellation was lodged. In this case I am more than happy to have the
outstanding balance written off.
To answer your question about the email that is sent to remind you of
the outstanding balance, I'm afraid I can't re send it as they are
system automated. Unfortunately I can't release any information
regarding the type of database/system we use in the company.
If you have any further questions in the meantime you can reply direct
to this email and it will put you through to me and I would be more than
happy to answer them.
Kind regards,
aol staffmember,
AOL Broadband Member Services
** Note; this email states that I can reply to it !!!! It is the exact same address that prompted the seemingly automated
response in Answer 3 from AOL !!!!!!!!
Although I am happy that they have written off the outstanding balance, they failed to answer most of my important questions.
Every person I spoke to on the phone lied to me and frustrated me to point of really loosing my temper which is extremely
uncharacteristic.
TO FINISH
I would advise you to record youself submitting cancel requests via the webform using camstudio or similar screen capturing
software. camstudio is free and excellent though.
I would advise you record the audio of conversations with call-centres. As they really do lie and take the path of least
resistance. Each time i was trying to cancel on the phone and put through to cancellations there was no answer and i had to
ring back 4 or 5 times with the same thing happening.
Also, under the data protection act you have a right to obtain all the information a company holds about you. I think the £10
fee is standard although im not certain. This is a very powerful weapon for your defense.
If you read the whole post you will see how many times AOL contradict themselves; ie no AOL agent has the power to stop the
balance going to a collection agency, then later an AOL agent does so......
just my story. hope it helps anybody, even if just one person that would be great.
all the best
tpot.
Im extrememly annoyed with AOL. So im going to make a post giving people some advice that i hope is useful.
Having been upset by the call-centre service in the past, and not wanting AOL getting money from my phone call I decided to
cancel via email via their cancellations page;
here it requests the these details:
Your full name
Your master screen name
The last four digits of the credit card, debit card or bank account number you provided when you registered with AOL Broadband
Your day and evening contact telephone numbers
I sent my request via the web-form with the details outlined above.
This is where it begins to get interesting; why is there a specific web-form and not a simple system of sending an email with these details?
It occured to me later that the customer has no record of what is passed through a web-form as would be the case in outlook express' sent items folder for example.
Anyway my request gets a response saying that i have payed for a month so cancel before next billing date.
OK. day before next bill date, I went to the bank and cancelled my DD to AOL. Filled another cancellations webform. And left it there. I beieve i had some sort of automated response from AOL but nothing concrete. A day or 2 later i check and see that the connection is indeed down, and this confirms in my mind that the cancellation procedure is complete.
A short while later I got an email saying that my payment details needed updating. I then filled in the cancellation web-form again and completed a customer satisfaction survey.
Fast forward ~3 months and I get a Final Warning Bill for £45. Threatening me with collection agency if not settled within 10 days. I had not received any emails from AOL during this time or letters etc.
I then call customer services. Im sure most of you know the drill here.....anyway the customer service guy denies ANY request
for cancellation. He then says that cancellations MUST be confirmed over the phone. This is clearly not stated on the
webpage, it says that they 'may respond' to you..........
I feel quite sure that legally this does not make clear that you
cannot cancel by email alone.
My advice here is to download camstudio and screen capture youself sending these details; you will then have evidence for a complaint.
I had actually requested the cancellation about 3-4 times. I spoke to around 4 or 5 customer service staff who all denied any
existence of them.
I then requested a supervisor callback that obviously didnt materialise.
Next I sent a written letter of complaint by recorded delivery.
I continue via email this time as the phone calls are hopeless. I have worked as a technical support agent for a well known
ISP so I asked them some uncomfortable questions;
EMAIL Q1 to AOL
Hi
,
Thanks for the quick reply. Will that give me more time with my outstanding bill. Can you please be very clear and specific
about this matter as AOL are threatening to
call in a money collection company.
If you are not sure, could you please give me contact details of somebody who will know.
Thanks.
my name.
ANSWER 1 from AOL 1
Dear myname,
Thank you for contacting AOL Broadband. I have reviewed your email and I will certainly be able to help you with your query
today.
On checking the account I can confirm that your account has been canceled at this time and no additional payment will be
added to outstanding amount in question. In relation to the outstanding amount in question I must advise that as we operate
on an automated billing system your account may be passed to a collection agency before your written complaint is dealt with.
The automated billing system cannot be suspended or altered as once an outstanding amount is identified on an account the
account passes through several steps before it is passed to a collection agency for payment. As your account has already
passed through our internal collection team and contact has been made with yourself through an outbound call and a letter
dispatched the next step is to move the account to the collection agency and unfortunately no agent of AOL Broadband can
alter this.
I would advise connecting our customer care team on 0844 4995555 as your earliest convenience to clear the outstanding amount
and once cleared you can persue your written complaint to reclaim the monies paid. Following an investiagtion if your claim
for a refund is approved it will take up to 30 days for the money to be refunded to you.
I hope that the information provided can assist you with your query. If you require any further assistance please don't
hesitate to contact us through the Live help forum.
Kind regards,
aol rep name,
AOL Broadband Member Services.
EMAIL Q2 to AOL
Dear aol rep,
'As your account has already passed through our internal collection team and contact has been made with yourself through an
outbound call and a letter dispatched the next step is to move the account to the collection agency and unfortunately no
agent of AOL Broadband can alter this. '
The final warning was the first letter that i recieved. Nobody ever sent one single letter or email about it previously. Why
is that?
Also, no contact was made with me by outbound call. Somebody called my mother's number and then hung up the telephone when
she came to find me.
Regarding the quote above; does that mean that nobody in AOL has the power to stop a payment being passed to a collection
agency? That is not true. Even a low/mid-level manager would have the power of such a decision. I think that refers to
general call-centre workers, not managers.
I have worked in call-centres so i dont really take that as true, if it were then the collection agency would be running
AOL??
Are there senior managers located there or just call-centre supervisors? My guess is just supervisors with maybe 1 or 2 more
senior managers visiting occasionally once or twice a week? Please answer this question, it is very important.
Obviously it is in my best interests to clear the balance and then claim back the money, so what is the outstanding amount
and has it already been passed to a collection agency. what is the status of this account?
Also, I am aware of my right to access all the information that you hold about me for a small fee (approx £10). How does AOL
deal with this procedure? I will probably need to follow this path and would like to know exactly how to proceed.
You have been very helpful.
Thanks
myname.
ANSWER 2 from AOL
Dear myname,
Thank You for your reply.
The current balance outstanding on your account is £44.97. If this is not paid then we would be within our rights to pass on
to a Collection Agency. We would not be in a position to stop this from happening due to the fact it is a valid bill. I can
confirm we have Supervisors and Managers located here in this Call Centre but again as the bill is valid we would not be in a
position to stop this bill from moving along the Collections process we have in place.
I have had a look through your emails from earlier this year. I can see you did send in a cancellation request back in March,
we replied to you advising you of your billing date and confirming that as you were paid up until that date you can keep your
account active until that date. And after that date to contact us and we will then fully cancel the account. This was not
done. You emailed again later that month asking when they last payment for your account was taken and you were advised of an
outstanding balance and how to pay this. At no point in these emails were you advised your AOL account was cancelled and you
were advised of an issue with your billing.
As it stands at the moment your AOL account is cancelled and 3 months remain outstanding on your AOL account. It has not yet
been passed to any Collection Agency.
If you wish to request a copy of your account histories you can do so. To do so you need to send a letter in containing the
following information:
State what information it is that you require i.e. a copy of your account histories
Cheque for £10 made payable to TalkTalk Group. Note: this is to cover postage and packaging.
Your Name, Address, AOL email address and your phone number
Proof of ID (Photocopy of either Passport, Drivers License, Utility Bill or Birth Cert)
And a contact number.
Please send to the following address
TalkTalk/ AOL,
Data Protection Office,
P.O. Box 390 ,
Southampton ,
SO30 9AQ
Just to be aware this request can take up to 40 days to be processed
Thank You for contacting AOL Broadband. Should you have any further questions please don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards
aol staff member.
Q3 to AOL
Hello,
Previous to your last email, I had spoken to at least 4 customer service staff at the call centre who all denied ANY requests
from me regarding cancellation.
I then make you aware of my right to obtain the information that you hold on me, and then suddenly you admit that a request
was sent.
In light of this, how can I trust anything that I am told?
How come ANY request for a cancellation was denied by ALL staff that I spoke to over the phone?
You mention the email last sent to me ; 'You emailed again later that month asking when they last payment for your account
was taken and you were advised of an outstanding balance and how to pay this'
Can you please send a copy of this email as I dont remember being advised of an outstanding balance. You claim that the
outstanding balance is 'valid'. If that is true you will not hesitate to send me all correspondence between youselves and me
during the whole month of April then I can happily pay and the matter will be resolved.
Any company with a 'valid' oustanding payment would be happy to provide this information to a customer, if the said company
had not made any errors. Do you agree?
Have I accessed that account 1 or more times during the times that I have been charged for?
Why is the web-based cancellations procedure web-form based and not email based?
I would like to know the name of the database software used in the call-centre to log customer calls/emails. Assuming you use
one of course.
How many different call centre staff did I speak to last week?
Please can you have a manager answer all my questions, it is very important.
Thank you very much.
Regards.
my name.
p.s. i am resigned to paying this balance. and would like to do so with some degree of confidence after receiving some very
basic information from AOL.
ANSWER 3 from AOL
Contact AOL Broadband Member Services via the online help form
Thank you for contacting AOL Broadband Member Services. This is an automated email. To contact us via email, you must submit
your query at ***cant post the link at the moment***. If you reply to this email, you will get this automated response again.
The only way to contact Member Services via mail is through the link above
** Note; i then sent Q3 via the webform (i recording myself submitting the document with camstudio). Basically the email
address that we had been using had *suddenly* become unavailable.
ANSWER 4 from AOL
Good afternoon myname,
I have reviewed your account using the information that you provided. I
had a look through the histories in order to find a cancellation. What I
did find was that you contacted us wanting to cancel but as the date was
just three days after your billing date the agent advised you that it
would be best to cancel on the following billing date. Hence, no
cancellation was lodged. In this case I am more than happy to have the
outstanding balance written off.
To answer your question about the email that is sent to remind you of
the outstanding balance, I'm afraid I can't re send it as they are
system automated. Unfortunately I can't release any information
regarding the type of database/system we use in the company.
If you have any further questions in the meantime you can reply direct
to this email and it will put you through to me and I would be more than
happy to answer them.
Kind regards,
aol staffmember,
AOL Broadband Member Services
** Note; this email states that I can reply to it !!!! It is the exact same address that prompted the seemingly automated
response in Answer 3 from AOL !!!!!!!!
Although I am happy that they have written off the outstanding balance, they failed to answer most of my important questions.
Every person I spoke to on the phone lied to me and frustrated me to point of really loosing my temper which is extremely
uncharacteristic.
TO FINISH
I would advise you to record youself submitting cancel requests via the webform using camstudio or similar screen capturing
software. camstudio is free and excellent though.
I would advise you record the audio of conversations with call-centres. As they really do lie and take the path of least
resistance. Each time i was trying to cancel on the phone and put through to cancellations there was no answer and i had to
ring back 4 or 5 times with the same thing happening.
Also, under the data protection act you have a right to obtain all the information a company holds about you. I think the £10
fee is standard although im not certain. This is a very powerful weapon for your defense.
If you read the whole post you will see how many times AOL contradict themselves; ie no AOL agent has the power to stop the
balance going to a collection agency, then later an AOL agent does so......
just my story. hope it helps anybody, even if just one person that would be great.
all the best
tpot.
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