AOL is evil!

Thought I’d share this article with you guys. Some of you may have read this...some may have not...but it’s pretty damn funny either way. As posted on Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050825-5240.html), it seems that AOL’s screwy policies for account cancellation have finally caught up with them. An attorney has won a lawsuit against AOL which resulted in a $1.25 million dollar fine and an end to the screwy cancellation policies that AOL has been practicing for the better part of 5 years. But that’s not the funny part...

Click the horror story link (http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2005/5/13/04618/7764) for some rather funny comments and stories about some of the crap that AOL subscribers have had to put up with when cancelling their accounts. So here’s my little horror story...

Me being a Star Wars fan, I wanted to get a hi-res copy of the first trailer for Episode III when it first appeared. Problem was that it was a Hyperspace/AOL exclusive...meaning you had to be a Hyperspace member on starwars.com OR you had to be an AOL member. So...in all my infinite wisdom...I decided to go with a 14-day free trial of AOL so I could get to some of the exclusive content. Well...cancelling it was a chore! Not only can you NOT cancel your account online (like normal companies do!), you have to call a damn 1-800 number and deal with a customer service representative. I must have spent a good 30 minutes listening to this woman on the other end and I must have said "NO!" at least 20 or more times. She just couldn’t take a hint...as if "No!" really meant "Maybe". At one point I went out of my way to explain that I’m an IT professional and a bit of a control freak and really don’t want AOL because I don’t want to have to install useless software on my machine and that the only reason I signed up was for some free Star Wars trailers. Sigh! "Well...you do know that we offer you complete control over your account and we have other exclusive content that you might be interested in. I’d be more than happy to give you another free month to take advantage of this exclusive content." God help us all! AOL is soooo evil! She finally gave in after 20 to 30 minutes and, believe me, she wasn’t so perky or nice afterwords. Heh heh!

L8R!

Jeff

But you know what really makes me hate AOL? The fact that they buy out all the good softare and ruin it (i.e. Netscape, ICQ, Winamp, Real Audio, etc.) And after buying out Netscape you’d think they’d at least use it, but no, they’re still using IE!

Did you know that to instal AOL 9 you need 500megs of free space! For what? All it is is a browser + adds and the browser uses all the IE code. I’m guessing it’s 498 megs of "Try AOL for free" installers that they store in every inch of your hard drive! Argh >:(

I’ve been on the net for almost 10 years now. And one thing that I remember from back then was that AOL was something that was to be hacked due to their evilness.


Anybody ever see any of the AOL CD lamps on the net? Hundreds of CDs were used. The lamps are pretty cool.

Here is something interesting. If McDonalds and Apple (iPod) could get hit for enivornmental issues then why isn’t AOL being targetted?

The latest trend in many businesses is the factor of getting new customers is harder than keeping old ones. Simple business sense because a large company can profit easily in the millions just by having a "save" policy in place.

Speaking of AOL CD’s...take a look at these eBay items:

Rare AOL 3.0 SAW BLADE Collector’s floppy disk
MAGIC JOHNSON...America Online Collector’s Disk, AOL CD
MORNING SCHEDULE...Rare America Online Disk, AOL 2.5 CD
HELLO!!! 23 AOL disks + display case 23 aol disk
AOL 1.6 for DOS Final Release Original Software Disk

Umm...$100 for an authentic Magic Johnson AOL CD? I think not! And ya gotta dig the AOL 1.6 for DOS disk...Yours today for only $12.50! The funniest is the 23 AOL disks and display. Heh heh...the guy even says how he got them: "This item was snatched from a burger king (willingly)." And it looks like he’ll actually get $12 for them! LOL! That is funny!

Quote from: Bravado at Aug 26, 2005, 08:32 PM

LOL! That is funny!

Funny? Or the most tragically pathetic thing I’ve ever seen?

There’s only one thing that AOL CDs are good for: microwaves