What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
129 Comments
- Aidenag, on 10/12/2007, -5/+176Even more Outrageous is that people still use AOL.........
- somesthetic, on 10/12/2007, -9/+175I suppose were required to just sit around and cry for a week first, huh?
someone has to take care of all the business. - Sagarian, on 10/12/2007, -2/+163Not only must someone take care of the business, but oddly enough focusing on mundane details and the mechanics of dealing with death is actually how some people cope.
- Moocat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+88Yes, all she could think about was how to cancel the AOL subscription, I'm sure it's the first thing that passed through her mind... /sarcasm
In all brutal honesty, it's best to get everything cancelled as soon as possible so you don't have to go through the torture of having to explain that your relative is dead to 50 companies that are still happy to bill you/them and require you to relive the death a number of times. - qwickone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+67She said she provided the Coroner ID #... shouldnt that be enough??
- silent1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+65@orgasmatron: You, sir, are a complete moron. We've just gone through this ourselves with the death of my other half's mother. Any money owed by the deceased comes out of the estate. The sooner you get services and things of that nature shut off, the better.
A word of advice - get lots of official death certificates (must be originals) and mail them (certified), along with an explanation of the problem, identifying information for the deceased (such as account number, SSN, etc.), and a very clear and concise order to terminate the service. This way, you can dispute any charges beyond the billing cycle in which the letter was delivered. - niiru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+56How much can you flood someones infrastructure when they provide you with approx 7kbps upstream+downstream together? :P
- JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -3/+49With the new AOL 12.0 and eSeance software, you can talk to your dead relatives 5 times as fast! Sign up today!
- chetanw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39Probably - but she mentions talking about the coroner report etc., so they could check it. What's ridiculous is that they want her mother to call and cancel the service.
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38AOL has been doing this for years. They are the hardest company to cancel service with. Bar none.
- NoSalt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32So you say your home and all of your possessions were destroyed by hurricane Katrina???
Well, what exactly about the AOL service didn't you like??? Maybe we can change your rate plan, we have these great new packages ....... - Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -7/+34yes, AOL is that bad
'I'm sorry maam, you mother has just passed away"
"oh crap, now I have to deal with AOL, whyyyyy!!" - elementx440, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25yeah, you'd think so... but when I canceled my card, they continued to back-charge me for about 6 months, then a collection agency called me. I told them, "well my credit card was cancelled, you couldn't bill me, and i didn't sign on for six months". she said, "it's our policy to keep the account open for 6 months, blah blah blah". Then they settled for half the price, what crap!
- rkuchiki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23But they were willing to change the billing plan and access rate. Shouldn't that need proper verification just as much as cancellation?
- Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26A) AOL Sucks -- always has.
B) The customer service agent here is a moron.
C) If you're still dumb enough to continue using AOL after the last two customer service stories here on Digg, you deserve everything you get. - silent1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Canceling a credit card, but not terminating a service that uses that card is not sufficient. You can still be liable for the continued charges (and "returned check fees", even if it's using a credit card).You really should educate yourself on this before it happens to you -- it's hard enough dealing with the loss, but having to manage the shut-down of that person's financial identity, while still having enough money from the estate left over to bury the person properly without breaking yourself in the process is quite challenging.
- Tochi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20I recently got my mom to finally drop her AOL, she never realized the internet was so easy to use!
- intricate, on 10/12/2007, -6/+25This gives new meaning to AOHELL.
- MrMuffMeat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I know most of you heard the MP3 a week or two ago on here where the dude recorded his conversation try to cancel his aol account. A lot of people (including myself) wondered if it was fake. Well I turned on NBC this morning while getting ready for work, and their morning show "Today" actually had the dude on the show to talk about what he went through while trying to cancel his account.
Boy, you know aol has to be loving all this PR they are getting. - Hayl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17We had an interesting customer service issue with Bell Canada a few years ago. Someone gave our home (land) phone number out as their contact phone number for their cell phone contract and then stopped paying the bills. We got spammed with automated threats from Bell Canada stating that our cell phone bill was in arears, etc... this went on for months until it became weekly and then almost daily. I phoned Bell Canada and informed them that we had none of their products or services and that they had the wrong phone number for whomever they were trying to contact. They flat out _refused_ to take our phone number off their records and basically called me a liar. Keep in mind that we had never had any service / cell phone, etc. from Bell Canada, ever, I found this interesting. I finally convinced them that I might not be lying but in order for them to take our number (they didn't know my full name at this point -- I figured it was none of their business) off their system they wanted my driver's license number, a credit card number, or my Social Insurance Number (read Social Security Number, people who live in the USA). In Canada it is illegal to ask for a SIN number, unless you are the government or an employer in which case you need it to register payments to Canadian heath benefits, etc... So anyway I told them that NO I was not giving them any of my information because I felt that it was none of their business. We finally phoned our phone company and told them what happened and they happily changed our phone number for us. Suffice it to say that I/we will never purchase any services from Bell Canada.
- scottylist, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Anyone else use the AOHELL program in the mid-1990's to hack AOL and generate free accounts to harrass others? Those were the days...*sigh*
- DJSdotcom, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19-[({{ 733t Punt3r-+-Pr0g }})]- --[ Activated: 9:32am; ]-- --[ Chat Commands: On; ]-- --[ Anti-Punt: On; ]--
1996 all over again :) - NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Joey,
The AOL drone was the one who was out of line. If you doubt this, then you should never, ever, consider starting your own business. Very few companies can get away with this kind of behavior, and they don't get to to that size by acting this way at the outset. AOL is a company that's heading for collapse, and it's doing stupid things to try to maintain its revenues. Pissing off your customers is ALWAYS a stupid idea.
-jcr - pharekyz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18@Joey - What a stupid comment, do you work for AOL? A company that hires and scripts people with the express purpose of making it difficult to cancel service is evil. If a company truly has good service, then they shouldnt fear everyone trying to cancel it.
- denjin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Too bad they can still charge you. I've closed credit cards before where I apparently had a recurring bill (automatic debit is evil). Even after closing the accounts they can still bill you. This was with Amex, even, who is supposed to be decent about it.
- djNullSpace, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16"Well as her credit cards were cancelled, they can no longer charge her for it."
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Ever hear of collections? They will get their money one way or another, and probably after letting charges rack up for years on end. I have unintentionally been through this. They (any company) waits until you owe a large sum of money and starts charging you late fees, etc. Really dispicable IMO. - mandreko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15The same thing happened to me when my mother died. The cable company didn't want to cancel it, they wanted to talk to her, since she was the only name on the account. I told them good luck. I also said, "Fine, if you won't cancel it, one day I'll just stop paying. Try turning my dead mother into a collection agency." Turns out they don't shut off your account for 3 months of non-payment. They called my house asking to speak to my mother, and I told them, "I told you she was dead when I tried to cancel this service a long time ago.". They screwed themselves out of $350, since they wouldn't let me transfer it into my name.
Way to go stupid companies! - silent1, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22FOLKS, there is a VERY SPECIFIC PROCESS you go through when someone dies and you're shutting down their financial identities. If you're unfamiliar, work through a lawyer. You don't just call up, say Ol' Mom kicked the bucket and all is well. AOL sucks, but like any business, they won't just take your word for it.
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14For the last 150 months, apparently, I've been charged one cent a month by Verizon for long distance service that I've obviously never used. This comes more than 12 years after I told my local company (Qwest) that I wanted no long distance service (I used a 10-10 service, then Vonage). I never, ever signed up for Verizon.
Once the bill was a dollar fifty, Verizon decided it was worth letting me know about and sent me the bill, marked as "late" of course. It was sent to a house I haven't lived in in over a year, and forwarded to my new address.
I hate these damned companies. - Lorian, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23Well as her credit cards were cancelled, they can no longer charge her for it. I'd flood their network with BitTorrent traffic.
- ArcusOfSV, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16"Anyone else use the AOHELL program in the mid-1990's to hack AOL and generate free accounts to harrass others? Those were the days...*sigh*"
Yeps. Mass mail in 5 mins. Say "gimme da shiz" to get in....
MM starting in 5.....4.....3....2....1..
*youve got pirated software*
Thise were the days.... - mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I wouldn't want any of my private correspondance turned over to my family after I died. If I wanted them to know something about me I would have told them or left that information somewhere they could get it.
- Scanner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15This is not out of the ordinary. My father in-law passed away suddenly 3 weeks ago. Several companies require a valid death certificate (takes 3 to 6 weeks to get them) or a court ordered administrator of the estate to close accounts. Qwest wouldn't cancel the phone account without the DC, nor would his bank and CC company. Its all very normal, ***** but normal. Comcast was at least nice enough to suspend billing on the account until we could provide them the DC to fully close it. Qwest just keeps on billing. Without requiring paperwork anyone could cancel anyone elses account assuming you knew a couple important numbers..SS, DOB, Home Phone that kind of thing.
This is a non-story designed to get the AOL haters flaming. Woot for digg. - brenbart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I believe it because the same thing happened to my step-mother when my father died.
- ziggystardust, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10They were just slammed on CNBC because some guy called to cancel his account and the operator said "You cancel it!". The guy recorded the call and CNBC broadcasted it. A director at AOL commented by stating that it was an "isolated incident." BS.
- TrevorBradley, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16I hate to say this, but I'd take a wild guess and say that a good chunk of people calling up to cancel AOL who say the account owner has died just really want to cancel service. I have idiot younger friends who do this to try to escape contract clauses or just to get people to stop phoning them by claiming their own death.
This doesn't make AOL any less of jerks for doing this though. - silent1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+103-6 weeks? We had ours in three days.
- setfree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9AOL's Customer Service is almost as bad as their actual service. I gave my younger brother a used computer one time while he was living with our elderly grandfather. They got AOL. My brother only had the computer for about two months before it died. Somehow, through AOL's online service my brother was trying to create new screen names and was actually able to create new accounts. Seven of them. The bills mny Grandfather were recieving were in the hundreds of dollars! It took months of calls to AOL to get the service stopped. In the end they debited well over a thousand dollars from his checking account for two months service. They wouldn't credit ANY of it back. They said he would have to pursue legal action against his 13 year old grandson. They suck!
- moshguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The same kind of thing happened to a friend of mine. He had just gotten a new phone line installed at his house. When at about a week in he started getting these collection calls for someone else. The number previouly belonged to some deadbeat. After a while he started taunting the people to come and get him. Since he knew if they did any further investigation outside of harassing him, they would find out that he wasn't the guy they were looking for.
One of the last things he did for this guy before the calls stopped was when the guy's high school reunion committee called up. He told them that the guy had died on the toilet in a very embarassing way. - MattyLite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That WOULD apply here had AOL requested a death certificate. As you can see in the article, they clearly did not.
- XorSystem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@Joey
What ever happened to simply fulfilling a request by a client... It doesn't matter if the AOL service was used a thousand times last week... a client calls up, requests cancellation, and you cancel it. It is up to the client to figure out if they truly want to cancel or not, and how that will affect them. This isn't difficult ish, it is simple, basic thinking...
What we saw in the AOL call (which I believe is 100% real, considering my roommate used to work for the call center here in ABQ, doing the same job) is someone trying their best to force the continuation of service. AOL has gone away from focusing on pleasing a customer, to convincing a customer that the world will end without AOL. That is the worst, most tasteless way to conduct a service, and it sickens me that they advocate these things.
I still love the whole "is your father there" question though... I'm a very nice guy and I'd never speak out against someone doing their job, but that was simply insulting and would definitely test my temper.... - Kbennett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You'd think AOL would start to worry about all this bad press. Their business is going downhill, and this terrible customer service PR (I've read a dozen stories in the last six weeks) just keeps coming out. Take the hint guys, it's time to rethink a few things if you want to survive.
- vmerc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9You know the motto: Bad PR is better than no PR.
- mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I'm 99.99% certain that if the account was created by a minor it's not binding. They HAVE to cancel it and return any fees collected. You may even be able to get it back still, especially if the person who was billied is still a minor.
- Randy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Vote for this story on the Netscape Beta. We need to keep AOL/Netscape-humiliating stories on the front page of this digg ripoff.
http://www.beta.netscape.com/story/2006/06/21/aol-refuses-to-cancel-service-for-deceased-woman/ - ripter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@Joey67
I you notice he answers the father question and the usage question. He was paying for it with _his_ credit card, not his dad (so the dad has no authority over the matter). The AOL Software wasn't installed on his computer (and hadn't been for quite some time). The usage report was of AIM use (which you don't have to have an AOL account to use) not account use. - chetanw, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Yeah - and it works even if you have broadband from Verizon or Comcast.
Did I mention that you can chat with your loved deceased ones with AIM Triton messenger? - kickarse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Especially when that story gets on digg :)
- yellowperil, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13you are a freaking retard... do you even read the articles you comment on?! its really really freaking short!!!
"even after I provided the coroner's ID number for the incident, etc.." that and aol is not a contract. at least not any longer.. dont be an ass - mecole21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My parents had something similiar happen to them. They finally threatened to take the company that kept calling them to court and then the company shut up.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 131 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is