CREDIT

aol

POSTED BY

Rob Beschizza

AT 7:03 AM
Saturday July 4, 2009

Dumb

AOL threatens former users with mystery bills

1352635747_21af4ff67e.jpgThe Wall Street Journal reports that AOL is secretly "upgrading" old customers, then sending the "debt" to collection agencies.

About a month ago, we started getting bizarre phone calls from a collections agency ... "concerning unpaid charges of $103.60."

When I asked what I was being charged for, I was told it was four months' worth of something called "upgraded service" for AOL in late 2008.

I pointed out that we had never requested or agreed to any upgrade, nor used any AOL service other than email. Please send a printed bill to my home address so I can formally dispute it, I requested.

"I am sorry, sir, but we cannot do that."

The victim is the Journal's own Jason Zweig, whose account was originally given tor him free of charge as a Time-Warner employee. He describes it as blackmail: "How can you charge me for something I didn't order and certainly didn't want, about which I was never informed, and for which I have received no bill of any kind?"

It's in the EULA, of course! Anyone who has ever had an AOL account -- even if you just used email or AIM -- needs to keep an eye on its decline into apparent shiftiness. Does it have your credit card information? Your bank details?

Photo: Rogue Sun Media

You've Got Blackmail: The AOL Account That Wouldn't Die

Update: Another example, right down to the victim being a former TW employee. [Consumerist]

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15 Comments

Anonymous Anonymous

#1 – 8:08 AM July 4, 2009

GOATSE!

Andrew

#2 – 8:52 AM July 4, 2009

can we talk about how much that disc's graphic resembles another infamous interwebs image that will not die?!!

..because it does.

phisrow

#3 – 9:02 AM July 4, 2009

Oh man. Somebody fucked up really badly on that one. Trying a sleazy scam on somebody who can just turn around and write about it in the Wall Street Journal? Epic fail.

brad

#4 – 9:18 AM July 4, 2009

this is true. i file claims for a major bank and lately we have been having customers calling us to file claims.. even when they havent had aol in 3 years. advised them to block their debit card.. honestly we can not dispute most of the charges. plus alot of ppl dont even look at their bank statements.

Dixon

#5 – 9:38 AM July 4, 2009

Sounds like mail fraud, violation of Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, and even some state laws. Attorney General, where are you?

fataltourist

#6 – 10:53 AM July 4, 2009

Who else looked at the image on the floppy label and thought "goatse"

Bryan Price

#7 – 11:13 AM July 4, 2009

@fataltourist: Yeah, so did I.

I guess it's a good thing my wife has changed financial institutions since she quit AOL seven years ago.

Hell, come to think of it, she's changed AIM accounts even. And I had my AIM accounts before I was even married to her.

musicalwoods

#8 – 11:55 AM July 4, 2009

Well now I'm thinking about Goatse,cx. Thanks :/

playghost

#9 – 4:47 PM July 4, 2009

oh my god! Mystery bills

Anonymous Anonymous

#10 – 6:28 AM July 6, 2009

I'd always thought that an ideal business model for anyone with 'flexible' morals would be if you had a list of the most gullible fuckwits in the world, the ones who will unquestioningly pay for any old crap just because theyve been told to. Once you have that list, you can just start charging them for any old shit and most of them will pay for it.

The problem with this business model has always been in creating that list of gullible unquestioning fuckwits. Luck AOL then, who have realised, to their joy, that they have THE MASTER LIST, i.e. their customer database. Milk the fuckwits! Milk them hard!

Anon

#11 – 12:50 PM July 6, 2009

You trust a company that uses Goatse for it's disks?
Yup, even before reading the article, I was wondering about how to shoop the diskette pic...

Mr-Yellow

#12 – 5:51 PM July 6, 2009

THE MASTERLIST OF MORONS.

HAHAHAHA So true.

Don't know how anyone could have gone on using AOL after every single person they talk to tells them to get the hell off that shitty service. :-)

Anonymous Anonymous

#13 – 2:09 PM July 7, 2009

I always thought AOL stood for A$$holes OnLine, now I'm sure of it.

Steve

#14 – 10:00 PM August 4, 2009

DirectTV does this all the time.

TINA

#15 – 8:22 PM August 13, 2009

IF THE ACCOUNT IS IN COLLECTIONS, THEN YOU HAVE RIGHTS. REQUEST A ITEMIZED BILL WITH YOUR SIGNATURE ON IT. OR SOME SORT PROOF YOU ORDERED IT. IF IT CAN'T BE PROVIDED, THE COLLECTION AGENCY MUST CANCEL THE ACCOUNT. AND REMOVE IT FROM YOUR CREDIT IF IT'S THERE. COLLECTION AGENCIES ARE REGULATED BY THE FAIR DEBT COLLECTIONS PRACTICES ACT(FDCPA), THEY MUST PROVIDE PROOF OF A DEBT WHEN REQUESTED. IF PROOF CANT BE PROVIDED THEY WOULD RATHER CANCEL THE ACCOUNT, THEN BE FINED..

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