said by SRFireside :

AOL goes much further than having a reinstate account button. They truthfully keep an account open well after you have it cancelled. They continue to bill you for the account you no longer access and requested cancelled. They tend to "forget" those phone calls where you said you wanted out. Then (at least in the early days) they call you incessantly getting you sign back up again. I know this from personal experience.

said by khc987 :

But didn't you get a cancel confirmation number? Did you read the notice sent by US Mail stating that your account was canceled or remained open or did it go straight to the trash? mabee you got no letter because you never updated your contact info. No confirmation number means no cancelation and member was told the account is still active.

said by 8744675 :

If you can sign up online, you should be able to cancel the same way.

said by khc987 :

But didn't you get a cancel confirmation number? Did you read the notice sent by US Mail stating that your account was canceled or remained open or did it go straight to the trash?

said by koam :

I'm not sure I understand...if a user logs on to a cancelled paid service again using the username and password, what's wrong with having to pay for that? If the user doesn't want to pay again, and he doesn't use it, he doesn't have to pay.

said by anonpronman :

apparently none of you have heard of customer retention.
It's when a company tries to prevent you from canceling a product or service. which is legal and ethically viable.
This is a Gross injustice against AOL.

said by anonpronman :

Explain what? get a dictionary.

said by Jeffrey :

Customer retention techniques are fine. But, 25 minutes on the phone with a representative explaining over and over that "I want to cancel" means "I want to cancel" seems like quite a burden on the customer, much less a complete waste of time for both.

said by LaurieDB :

I remember repeating over and over that I wanted to cancel my account. The representative just kept going on like she never heard a thing. She asked me who my new ISP would be. I didn't feel that was any of her business, although I'm sure AOL likes to know to whom they are losing business. She asked me questions about whether or not my new ISP had "7 layers of protection." Before I could say anything, she added, "They don't." I finally asked her why she was making it so difficult, after about 15 minutes of trying to cancel. She said to me, "Ma'am, I'm not being difficult, I'm just doing my job."

I would absolutely hate to be an AOL representative. I couldn't stand driving people crazy like that, and dealing with the responses that come with it. AOL probably loses a lot of customers who get some skills and no longer need training wheels and the high price that goes with them. I'm sure that's why they offer all the freebies.

Then they called a few weeks later to try to get me to sign up again. Like someone said, customer retention techniques are one thing, but AOL is like a bulldog--grabs on and doesn't let go.