According to this report, AOL or America Online as they are otherwise known, has agreed to pay $3 Million to settle with 48 states and Washington, D.C. to avoid lawsuits.
The once-mighty Internet giant has been accused of somewhat-less-than-satisfactory customer service when dealing with customers who wished to cancel their AOL service.
You may recall a recording a while back that enjoyed wide circulation and was created by a former AOL customer who called the company to cancel his service. The customer service representative was so obnoxious that it defied the imagination and was instrumental in showing the company’s true colors.
Well, now some information is coming out that reveals why some of those AOL customer service reps were trying to hold on to customers as if their lives depended on it. In some cases, they were being offered as much as $3,000 as a bonus for convincing a customer to remain as a customer that called the company to cancel their service.
These shenanigans resulted in a massive flood of complaints about AOL to consumer agencies that led to the threat of lawsuits which forced AOL to see the light and offer a settlement and hopefully bring an end to the aggressive tactics that had been used in an attempt to retain fleeing customers.
I’ve talked about AOL here before and they have long been on my list of most-hated companies. As a result, I am just thrilled to see them being forced into shelling out big money to pay for their sins.
AOL found itself in trouble back in 2005 for similar transgressions and had to pay out $1.25 Million in penalties and at the time had agreed to improve the way they handled customer cancellations. So much for that promise. Maybe this latest big payout will convince them to follow through on their promises this time.
Leave a Reply