what should I do with AOL?

sam1970

update..Eventually I managed to speak to a nice irish chap who was willing to help. Unfortunately he could not find the offer I was promised on my account but he offered to give that offer on a 18 months contract (instead of the origianl 12 months I was offered) and I accepted. He confirmed by email and has been replying to my emails. The only thing now is I am trying to get the free 3 months and he promised to look into that

Mark_In_Hampshire

Customers can cancel by a variety of means. It doesn't have to be by phone.

So if the email you got was not what was discussed, forward it back to them straight away notifying them of that - it was not what was discussed, and you formally reject this alternative offer.

You would like to take up the offer of X/Y/Z (spell out what it was) which was agreed with (rep) on (date) at (time).

Then should it come back to bite you later, you have, in writing, what you were mis-sold, and your formal rejection of same.

davelees

sam1970 wrote: »

update..Eventually I managed to speak to a nice irish chap who was willing to help. Unfortunately he could not find the offer I was promised on my account but he offered to give that offer on a 18 months contract (instead of the origianl 12 months I was offered) and I accepted. He confirmed by email and has been replying to my emails. The only thing now is I am trying to get the free 3 months and he promised to look into that

Glad to hear that you got your deal (even if you had to take the 18 month contract).
I was promised 3 months free rental when I renewed last September, but the following month I saw I was still being billed. I emailed the 'nice Irish lady' who apologised and activated the free period, so it will be worth checking your bills.

davelees

I spoke with aol today (another lovely Irish lady), they cannot offer me the £14.09 package as my exchange has not been updated.
She has put me on a monthly rolling contract, giving me the next 2 months free. Hopefully we can review it in a couple of months to see if there is any futher re the exchange being updated. She has also added free calls to Spain to my package as I have family moving out there.
She has sent me an email confirming this, so I have her contact details.

elektra

AOL annoyed me today. They phoned me to try and get me to move my line rental to them.

I currently pay £7.20 for unlimited and 24 hr talk to 01/02/03 numbers. Getting 1.2 Mbps which seems all I can expect from my line.

They offered line rental at £13.20 per month ( 2 months free), 24 hr calls to 01/02/03/0845.., 24MB sp (depending on line), 10 GB download.

First thing I said 10GB downloiad no good I'm currently unlimited, so she quickly said unlimited.

I said I didn't want to sign up to this today as a) had several service interruptions lately and b) my speed is not as good as when I first signed up

Her answer to a) - 'there has been some work on exchange in last month' - this sounded like a stock reply to me

Her answer to b) - 'compared it to a piece of material - gets worn out after a while plus more people using it'.
seemed a strange reply to me
she then went on to say if I signed up I would be put onto their equipment in the exchange and get upto 5 Mbps. I asked what this service was called and she didn't give a reply I could understand.

I asked if she could put offer in an email then I would decide. No she could not do that, only a standard email with same offers as website. They would send me an email after I signed up and if it was not what I wanted I could cancel.
I find this staggering that they can't put offer in email.

At my continued reluctance she threw in a new router. At no time did she mention contract length.

I asked her to summarise offer and when she got to 10GB download I terminated the call. She had completely wasted my time as she had not listened/made a note of requirements.


so
a) not an offer anywhere as good as OP
b) might save me a bit on rental
c) not clear on download limits
d) not clear on speed.

not a wonderful deal

think i might phone tech helpline later to confirm what best speed I can get
Edit : this is what Uswitch says I can get
Standard broadband Up to 8Mb (estimated speed: 1.5Mb)

High speed broadband Up to 24Mb (estimated speed: 2Mb)

.Johanna.

I started e-mailing AOL after getting fed up with the lies their sales team tell on the phone. It takes a couple of days for them to reply, but at least the answers are more accurate.

bod1467

elektra wrote: »

Edit : this is what Uswitch says I can get
Standard broadband Up to 8Mb (estimated speed: 1.5Mb)

High speed broadband Up to 24Mb (estimated speed: 2Mb)

Those figures are based on the BT line length database, which is known to be wrong in some cases. If you post your current router stats we can advise what you could possibly achieve.

elektra

bod1467 wrote: »

Those figures are based on the BT line length database, which is known to be wrong in some cases. If you post your current router stats we can advise what you could possibly achieve.

Thanks

Is the router stats you mean ?

Uptime: 0 days, 0:07:36
Modulation: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 440 / 1,404
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 1.19 / 3.95
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 16.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 34.5 / 65.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 15.0 / 9.0

results from speedtest just now
ping 74ms download 1.4 Mbps upload 36Mbps
ping 65ms download 1.27 Mbps upload 35Mbps

above taken from laptop downstairs. Router is ethernet connected to PC upstairs.

bod1467

Speedtest results are scooby - how can you get 36meg upload speed?

65dB means you're a long way from the exchange. And you're already on ADSL2+ so no other provider is going to give you a massive hike unless you can get FTTC (which BT brand as Infinity), wherein it is the distance to the cabinet that matters, not the distance to the exchange.

65dB will give a maximum sync speed of 1,824 kbps per http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php ... this is based on 6dB SNR margin and an Interleaved profile (I believe). So the BT database is about right. You could try contacting AOL and asking them to adjust your noise margin to improve your speed a little. (In TalkTalk-speak you would ask for 24ISNR6 profile - and AOL are part of TT now).

elektra

bod1467 wrote: »

65dB means you're a long way from the exchange. And you're already on ADSL2+ so no other provider is going to give you a massive hike unless you can get FTTC (which BT brand as Infinity), wherein it is the distance to the cabinet that matters, not the distance to the exchange.

Thanks, that confirms what I have been telling my son when he moans about download speed (have told him I'm not paying for infinity). As you can probably tell I never believed the AOL sales speak of improved spped.

How can you tell from the info I gave that I am on ADSL2 ?

bod1467 wrote: »

65dB will give a maximum sync speed of 1,824 kbps per http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php ... this is based on 6dB SNR margin and an Interleaved profile (I believe). So the BT database is about right. You could try contacting AOL and asking them to adjust your noise margin to improve your speed a little. (In TalkTalk-speak you would ask for 24ISNR6 profile - and AOL are part of TT now).

Thanks, I'll give that a try.