Posted on 11/19/2002 8:48:21 AM PST by tdadams
McCOOK, Neb. - Terry Thompson was using a local Internet service when he signed up to try out AOL's dial-up service. The "free" trial, which lasted 22 days before Thompson ended it, ended up costing him $916.
Thompson signed up for the service online. To find an AOL number to make the Internet connection, he typed his area code, 308, into the sign-up form. Several numbers popped up, none of them in McCook. He chose 865-6001 in Kearney, 100 miles away.
Normally, he knew, that would be a long-distance call. But free means free, he figured, and AOL must have a deal with the phone company to carry dial-up connections.
Three weeks later, he found out differently. Using the Internet, Thompson had run up $916.20 on his MCI long-distance phone bill.
While the bill was a shock to Thompson, it was not an unfamiliar problem for AOL. The nation's largest Internet service - most of its 27 million U.S. subscribers are on dial-up - has been the target of complaints in several states because of long-distance charges that surprised customers.
Company spokesman Nicholas Graham said the long-distance charges are not AOL's fault.
"In our advertising, we make it very clear that telecommunications charges may apply," said Graham, who works at America Online's headquarters in Dulles, Va.
Disclaimers are in advertising, on the CDs that AOL mass mails to Americans and in the online applications that customers, such as Thompson, use to order AOL service, Graham said.
"The bottom line is we leave it up to our members . . . to make sure the access numbers they're going to use are indeed going to be local," he said. Subscribers should check with their phone companies, he added.
Thompson said he didn't see a warning when he signed up for AOL: "If it would have said it was a toll call, I would have just canceled."
He concedes, though, that after learning about the long-distance charges, he looked at the AOL Web site again and found a mention about choosing a local provider.
"But I just assumed they already had things set up. . . . It didn't make sense to me that they would give me free AOL and then bill me for the (long-distance) time I was on it."
Thompson said he lives on Social Security disability checks and watches his pennies, rarely making a long-distance call.
But during his AOL tryout, he used the Internet connection every day, typically staying online for hours at a time.
The MCI bill shows 14 hours and 49 minutes on Sept. 27 and 15 hours, 37 minutes the next day, the longest session in the 22 days. The bill shows 18 sessions that were at least three hours long.
Like AOL, MCI says the company is not at fault. The long-distance company has no connection with AOL and can't tell an Internet access connection from a long-distance voice call, said Lauren Kallens, an MCI spokeswoman in Washington. "A dial-up call shows up as a long-distance call," Kallens said.
Lance Harke is a Miami lawyer who has taken AOL to federal court in a class-action lawsuit that contends AOL does not do enough to warn customers. One of the two initial clients in the suit, filed in 2000, is Patricia Colclasure of Shawnee, Kan., a Kansas City suburb. Her daughter, Lilly, 11 at the time, ran up a $3,190 long-distance bill in a month using AOL.
The lawsuit charges that AOL lacks sufficient local access numbers to meet demand and that it configured computers to access the Internet by using long-distance or toll numbers.
Reports from New York, West Virginia, Florida, California and Pennsylvania tell of people running up long-distance bills of thousands of dollars a month because of such secondary access. If the local number is busy, according to the allegations, the computer dials a backup number that is a long-distance or toll call.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission has gotten complaints about unexpected long-distance charges on Internet access, but the PSC's John Burvainis said those usually are cases where customers should have been more careful. "It's one of those buyer-beware problems," Burvainis said.
The Iowa Attorney General's Office is investigating a half-dozen complaints from the suburban Des Moines and Ames areas, said Bob Brammer, a spokesman.
Thompson dropped his AOL service in the middle of the free trial period and signed up with another local Internet provider in McCook. He said he has no plans to pay the $916 long-distance bill. He said neither MCI nor AOL has offered to take care of the bill for him.
Sure is. Lots of free disks for target practice.
Keeps the birds out of the garden too.
The same kind of stupid you have to be to sign up for AOL in the first place
Because AOL is not an just internet provider but a content provider. If you want their views and opinions as news and fact then you have exactly what you need. But the beauty of the internet is that you can get everyone's views and opinions without AOL's censorship.
Then I guess he has no plans on continuing long-distance service. MCI will be only too happy to disconnect him for non-payment.
To find an AOL number to make the Internet connection, he typed his area code, 308, into the sign-up form. Several numbers popped up, none of them in McCook. He chose 865-6001 in Kearney, 100 miles away.
Normally, he knew, that would be a long-distance call. But free means free, he figured, and AOL must have a deal with the phone company to carry dial-up connections.
What is the thought process that leads someone to that conclusion? How f***in stupid do you have to be? The only future this guy has in in those Apple commercials where he can claim he's too dumb to use a PC.
Does a tongue count as an appendage? :)
Lichgod
And if you're good, you can make an AOL CD last for a couple of weeks.
(One 9mm through the center after another....)
Because AOL actually makes the Internet harder. One example is its inability to handle receiving multiple attachments on e-mails. This needless compication is a pain for someone trying to e-mail an AOL user, and is frustrating for the user also.
Plus, it kicks you off.
AOL may have made sense as a business concept back before the Web took off. Back when the only other way to be on the Internet was to become fluent with a lot of arcane textual coding commands.
But now it only adds a needless layer of functionality and complexity. I mean, what do they offer that you can't find just as easily on the Web today through a better and cheaper provider.
Like you can't find United Airline's web site without AOL's keyword.
I guess I just don't see what AOL offers that can't be gotten cheaper and more easily with a provider that doesn't provide an extra layer of proprietary functionality.
Since AOL is not really adding value for its users, I don't see how it can expect to grow its user base organically.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.