Three years ago my brother died (officially missing, presumed dead - no death certificate)," wrote an anonymous contributor last week at gripe2ed.com, a consumer complaint Web log. "At that time I was able to cancel his credit card, gas, insurance - everything except his AOL account."
It seems that America Online, not entirely irrationally, needed a screen name and other account information to properly cancel the subscription - something this consumer, under the circumstances, did not have handy. Collection notices for payments past due soon followed. The consumer was not amused.
"Maybe other people have resorted to faking death in order to get out of their AOL accounts?"
Probably not, but last Wednesday the office of the New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, announced that it had reached a settlement with America Online, which is owned by Time Warner. The agreement requires AOL to "remove obstacles consumers face when seeking to switch or cancel service," suggests that breaking up with AOL, which admits to no wrongdoing in the matter, is hard to do.
As part of the settlement, the company must pay refunds to disgruntled New York subscribers, $1.25 million in fines and costs to the state and stop providing incentives to customer service representatives who generate "saves" by talking subscribers, sometimes relentlessly, out of canceling their accounts.
Nicholas J. Graham, a spokesman for America Online, said in an e-mailed statement that the company was "pleased to have reached agreement" with Mr. Spitzer, and that new customer care practices would "assist with the verification of certain member intentions online."
Whether the agreement will stick remains to be seen. After all, smooth-talking "retention specialists" are a staple of corporate customer service everywhere (Monster.com, the classified jobs board, lists thousands of openings). America Online's settlement with Mr. Spitzer comes after a scuffle with the Federal Trade Commission in 2003 over similar charges, and an agreement with the Ohio attorney general in June to give refunds to customers there for improperly billing after cancellations.
Whatever the long-term outcome, the challenges apparently being faced by some users seeking to quit America Online have fed a healthy subgenre of cybergriping and online solution-sharing for years. And while faking one's death or feigning lethal madness (see below) might go well beyond the necessary, the following excerpts do suggest a communication gap in which both company and consumer share some of the blame.