aol still taking money from me

[revdrun]

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all. You have helped me get rid off Ruthless the balliffs and a separate parking fine. You guys/gals are grrrreat!!!!!! Well its 2008 and here we go again. This time my problem is aol. Dec 06, I bought a laptop and connected to aol dial up (reason for dial up is that I would be moving in 2 months and wanted internet straight away). I moved and kept the dial up, then moved again to a house that already has talk talk broadband. I cancelled the dial up in August according to there instructions and recvd a confirmation email. Then in December, I noticed payments to aol had resumed. Further investigation showed they had started taking money again in Sept! I queried it with them and they said that because I had "accessed the software" I had given them permission to start taking payments again!!???!! I then cancelled it again. I also went to my bank (Barclays) to stop the payment and they said that because it was set up on my debit card they could'nt stop the payment. Barclays told me that they do not recommend customers taking out this type of card payment as I or they cannot cancel it only aol!!??!!

I sent aol a letter b4 Xmas outlining my complaint and saying that I want my money back and the cost of my recorded letter. I recvd a letter today basically telling me politely where to go!

This is not how I expected to start 2008. Can they take money from my account without my permission? Do they have the right to keep my debit card details? Thanks in advance for your help.

[Penfold92]

Hi,

 

Firstly Happy New Year to you and I fully understand what you mean about not wanting to start the New Year off badly...

 

Sorry no-one has replied to you as yet, but I am sure someone will be along soon. In the meantime, who did you write to at AOL? Try to write to someone higher up rather than the usual cust service bods who don't give a t**s.

 

I did this with BT and got very pleasing results...Try writing to this address it is the registered office at Companies House and make the letter out to the Sales Director or better still try to find out a name of one of the senior directors. This avoids a bod opening the letter and dumping it with the other million complaints at Cust service.

 

Hope that helps for now,

 

Penfold

[ab123uk]

Revdrun, ah, AOL, reminds me of when I worked in debit card servies!

 

OK, AOL's outlook- by taking out any free trial, broadband or dial up service, you must provide your debit card details, if you cancel and then attempt to access the software, even in error, you are re-entering the contract, therefore they debit your account again, in 18 months we did not see one case where AOL returned payments, and as said, the payment's cant be stopped, as even a new debit card with a different PAN (card number) and verification code, would accept the payment by system default as the systems would recognise the once 'regular' payment.

 

I hope you do get your $$ back, but unfortunately, it is unlikely.

[gwc1000]

Hi, ab123uk. I'm sorry if this question may seem silly, but what do you mean by "accessing the software"? And how may this be done in error? The reason I ask is that we have just changed from aol to an alternative internet provider.

Regards

[robin9342]

This seems to depend on exactly what they mean by "accessed the software". As I understand it, you were given a free dial up number to access the service, most likely using the AOL browser.

 

When you switched to Talk Talk BB, presumably you now use Internet Explorer or Firefox? Even if you are still using the AOL browser to access Talk Talk, I dont see how they would charge for this as the AOL browser can be downloaded for free.

 

The only way AOL would be able to charge you is if you somehow dialled the free number again. If that were the case, AOL would have a record of the calls. I would insist that AOL provide you with the times and dates of the alleged calls.

[la2006]

AOL would have a record of the calls. I would insist that AOL provide you with the times and dates of the alleged calls.

 

 

Is there any legal requirement for AOL to provide this information to consumers. I need the above information for the period 2005-2008. Do i have to pay a fee for this information? or just write a letter giving them 14/40days??

Is it the same as a Subject access request under the Data protection act???

[freakyleaky]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/broadband-other-internet-issues/164885-aol.html#post1773386

 

I believe the fee is £10. But you can request this information with an sar.