Aces Full of Links

My father had similar difficulty cancelling his AOL subscription years ago, after his "FREE TRIAL!!" had run out. I told him, don't let them draw you into a conversation where you have to defend your decision to drop them. You don't need to give them a reason.

Strangely enough, I don't recall having trouble closing my AOL account. It was 1994 or so, I think. Maybe they hadn't become desperate yet.

I've had similar difficulty cancelling credit cards. Often, I end up having to say something like, "are you refusing to close my account?"

When I lost my job and had to cancel cable, I finally said, "let me put it another way - you don't have to turn my cable off if you really think I need it, but I'm not going to be paying for it." That did it.

OMG, that's HILARIOUS. Yep... LOVE it. That's exactly my experience when I cancelled the one I got for my mom. Der. And I love the credit card companies, too, Julie... "Why are you cancelling?" "Um, because your interest rates suck." Then they proceed to lower the interest rate by like 10%, even though you'd asked them to do it 100x before you closed the account.

Yeah, I love that. "Oh, NOW you're going to lower my interest rate? Uh, sorry, too late! Already found someone lower, that's why I'm closing this account!"

They don't call them AOhelL for nothin'. That guy had a longer fuse than I would have...

Holy crap that's outrageous... when I cancelled my account back in the early 90's it wasn't nearly so rough. I would surely have blown my top. I can't believe the blunt disrespect of the service rep "I can stall you all day it makes no difference to me." What an ass.

I thought you had to cancel a credit card in writing.

I've had all of those problems too. The tactic basically seems to be to refuse to close the account and keep you on the line until you give up asking them to close your account. It's like the way people debate on the internet. Keep repeating the same point over and over again until folks get tired of arguing with you, and declare victory.

The last time I had AOL and wanted to cancel they made me call the number and I just basically said "I want to cancel my account. I don't want to explain why. I don't want a free extension. I don't want a reduced rate. I don't want to hear anything from you other than 'Okay, I'm cancelling your account right this second.'"

The guy stuttered a bit and then said, "Okay sir, your account is cancelled."

I felt bad that I had to do that, but at the same time I probably let him off the hook for having to "convert" me.

I still have a credit card that they wouldn't let me cancel and I didn't have time to argue with them about it. I also have a credit card I haven't used in a year that has a 24% interest rate that they told me they can't possibly lower. I bet if I call to cancel that I'd see it dropped down to 12% pretty damn fast.

I've never had to cancel a credit card in writing - I've always been able to do it over the phone.

I'd send in a written cancellation by registered mail if I had doubts about the outcome of our phone conversation, though.

AOL is reportedly blowing away big chunks of their subscription model now and is expected to lay off up to 80% of all call center staff throughout the world.

I have run these programs before, but didn't put a sales plan in place. Instead, I filtered them to more empathetic customer service reps and bonused them at differing levels.

Sad.