AOL Trouble

[Jokerette]

Latest AOLHELL problem.

"Sorry, we are unable to open email"

and then when I try again a few minutes later

"Sorry, we are unable to list email"

It's not letting me access my emails. I've never had either of these messages before, what the **** is going on? I'm on 9.0. God this is crazy, AOL has been working wonderfully for months and now it goes and does this. Does it WANT me to leave and go to NTLworld? Becuase that's what I'm very tempted to do.

Has anyone else ever had this problem? I've had AOL since late 1998 and not once has this happened before!

[I am Roboto]

Originally posted by Jokerette
Latest AOLHELL problem.

"Sorry, we are unable to open email"

and then when I try again a few minutes later

"Sorry, we are unable to list email"

It's not letting me access my emails. I've never had either of these messages before, what the **** is going on? I'm on 9.0. God this is crazy, AOL has been working wonderfully for months and now it goes and does this. Does it WANT me to leave and go to NTLworld? Becuase that's what I'm very tempted to do.

Has anyone else ever had this problem? I've had AOL since late 1998 and not once has this happened before!

I can't help with your problem but I've heard a lot of negative stories regarding AOL's mail service (and its service in general). If this is becoming a consistent problem, switching is probably your best bet. If you are on dial-up, you may want to also consider a high-speed option.

Hope everything works out.

[Brent88]

Never heard of that problem but AOL sucks. If you have to keep AOL service, get a free email address from Yahoo or somewhere else.

[Lodee]

I hate AOL! When you call them you can't even understand the CSR's. And they lie too.

[Kitt]

I have been having my emails that I send to people who are on AOL bounce back lately. AOL gives their reasons for the problem when I click a questionaire. Their reasons and excuses don't make sense, though.

Someone, a friend of mine who knows about these things, told me that AOL has spats with Pacbell and others from time to time and screw all of us up while they are doing that. My recommendation is for you, and droves and droves of other people, to drop AOL like a hot potatoe. That's the only way they will stop being such jerks. That is if they survive the enormous loss of revenue if you all were to do that.

[Kazza]

All the techs for support there speak with a worse accent than mine! We could never understand each other!

[robyrob]

about the only thing that you can do is call AOL and ask for support, if you don't like the customer service or can't understand the CSR due to a thick accent, ask to speak to a manager and complain, and ask how you can contact the CEO Jon Miller's office to make a formal complaint.

...or you could just switch

[Jokerette]

Whatever the problem was, it has righted itself now. Still, I'm going to leave. There are far better ISPs out there.

[Janice]

I've never encountered e:mail problems with AOL except, as Kitt mentioned, not receiving mail from Pacbell. I think I'm getting all my other e:mail.

I've had AOL since 1996, and I really like it. I'm used to it, and it's so user-friendly. I have Comcast too, and decided that it's silly to pay for AOL when I'm paying close to $50 a month for Comcast.

I called AOL today to cancel my account, and the rep did everything under the sun to prevent me from cancelling....offering lower rates, etc. I told her that I know it's her job to try to keep a customer but I'm cancelling.

She put me on hold, came back and told me that she talked to her supervisor, and they are giving me two free months of AOL. I told her that I most likely will still cancel when the free two months are up, and that didn't faze her. Hey, I'll take it.

I felt bad for the rep. She was desperate.

[Lodee]

Originally posted by Unmarried*happy
All the techs for support there speak with a worse accent than mine! We could never understand each other!

I think I read somewhere that their Customer Service Dept (if you can call it that) is in India or something.

[Lodee]

Originally posted by Janice
I've never encountered e:mail problems with AOL except, as Kitt mentioned, not receiving mail from Pacbell. I think I'm getting all my other e:mail.

I've had AOL since 1996, and I really like it. I'm used to it, and it's so user-friendly. I have Comcast too, and decided that it's silly to pay for AOL when I'm paying close to $50 a month for Comcast.

I called AOL today to cancel my account, and the rep did everything under the sun to prevent me from cancelling....offering lower rates, etc. I told her that I know it's her job to try to keep a customer but I'm cancelling.

She put me on hold, came back and told me that she talked to her supervisor, and they are giving me two free months of AOL. I told her that I most likely will still cancel when the free two months are up, and that didn't faze her. Hey, I'll take it.

I felt bad for the rep. She was desperate.

Yeah, they're great until you have a problem. They did the same thing to me when I tried to cancel. The begging is pathetic, isn't it? I told them thanks but no thanks on the free month. Maybe if they treated people better to start with, they wouldn't have to beg them not to leave. (the cancellation department is the only nice department they have, I think!)

[Janice]

Originally posted by Lodee
Yeah, they're great until you have a problem. They did the same thing to me when I tried to cancel. The begging is pathetic, isn't it? I told them thanks but no thanks on the free month. Maybe if they treated people better to start with, they wouldn't have to beg them not to leave. (the cancellation department is the only nice department they have, I think!)

Yes, the begging was pathetic. She was trying every angle under the sun. Asking what features I like best about AOL, they'll lower the price....even said that if my cable goes out, and I'm using Comcast, that I would lose Internet service, and that wouldn't happen with AOL. I told her my cable has gone out about three times in ten years.

Finally, I figured I'd go the 'can't afford it' route. I told her that I'm not working. I'm not, but it's by choice. Here's the kicker, her reply was that AOL has great job-finding services. I told her that there's other services like Monster.com or JobFind.com, but she didn't want to give it up. They're obviously working off a script because she had an answer for everything. There's probably a commission going on too.

I finally told her that I know it's her job, but I'm cancelling. I'll take the free two months though. As I said, I really like AOL, but keeping it is just throwing money out the window. I checked out my Comcast welcome page and e:mail, and it's every bit as nice as AOL. After almost 10 years, I was sort of afraid to change, but I will in January.

[AKA]

All the AOL reps care about is how long you keep your account after you talk to them. They can potentially make up to three different commissions off of you - one if you stay a member at least 24 hours after speaking with them, an ever bigger one for 30 days, and a gigantic one for 90 days.

If you call in to cancel, don't fall for their crap. AOL offers absolutely no exclusive perks that are worth the $23.90 or $14.95 a month. You can get 99.9% of the features they tout as "exclusive" on the web.

[AKA]

Originally posted by Lodee
I think I read somewhere that their Customer Service Dept (if you can call it that) is in India or something.

Unfortunately, a lot of them are. But most of them are still located in the United States (I'm sure that will change within the next few years, though).

[robyrob]

Originally posted by AKA
Unfortunately, a lot of them are. But most of them are still located in the United States (I'm sure that will change within the next few years, though).

AOL (along with ALMOST every other computer company out there) is outsourcing more and more tech support/CSR` jobs to foreign companies every day, they may lose some customers, but the amount of money they save makes it increasingly difficult for them NOT to do so, and still maintain competitive pricing.