AOL Again

When I called *AOL Special Features* to cancel the Privacy Wall on 4/17, the nice man said, Sure, no problem, we'll refund and never charge again. That was the person who switched me to the "regular" customer service people, the Sharks.

Next day, lo and behold, there was a NEW $3.95 charge! This one was at the FL bank!

8^0 !!!

WELL! and was I all over that?

Like white on rice.

When I called about the NEW $3.95 charge, Special Features now said they weren't empowered to resolve it, and told me to call the Sharks. My insistence that Special Features had already "resolved" an identical charge did not move them. They, in fact, told me that was impossible. Gee. I must be lying, huh?

*snort!*

The Sharks, at 800-827-6364, told me this:

They couldn't reverse the 4/5 charge because it didn't exist. There was absolutely no record of it. I offered to fax them proof from the bank. Not interested. They said maybe their Account Investigators would want that, later, and if so they'd ask me for it.

--You're not an Account Investigator?

--No. I'm just writing all this up for them.

A very, very, very slow writer. I bet he moves his lips when he writes.

The only charge they found was the $3.95 on 4/17. He said they could probably take care of that one pretty fast. Why? Because it was ALREADY refunded after my first phone call.

I firmly said this $3.95 didn't even appear until AFTER that call - and that first rep clearly saw the 4/5 charge in Utah, and agreed to refund it.

There really WERE two $3.95 charges! I stuck to my guns!

They stuck to theirs! I must be IMAGINING it!

This Shark was clearly both an idiot and a newbie, conferring with a trainer as he went. This all took him around 30 minutes. I played a lot of Free Cell and watched TV.

So: AOL has now spent 30 minutes of 2 staff members' time, just to take notes for Account Investigators to spend even more time, all to try to avoid refunding one $3.95 charge. We're probably talking at least 1 1/2 total manhours here.

I was told the $23.90 and $25.90 were for monthly service, and wouldn't be refunded because I'd used the service in the meantime. I said, it took me over a month to get through on the phone to cancel it. If you'd answer your phone it would have been cancelled long ago.

Ok. Maybe they would have refunded it but I used the account during that month.

I didn't need to, I have a free account, and if I'd known it would matter I'd never have touched this one.

Too bad.

I leave this issue for later.