We used AOL for business purposes, so I opened the account under the company name, with a company credit card and my name. When the rates went up I looked for a better deal. I found out that my local phone provider also offered internet access for an additional $13.00 per month. AOL was then around $20.00 per month, so it was a good deal.

I had linked my AOL billing to automatically be paid by the company credit card, and when I tried to cancel AOL (at a point after I started the new service), I was surprised to discover that AOL has several "special" 800 numbers used exclusively for customers to cancel their service.

I called to cancel the service at the exact right time to prevent an additional month of service, while I had already started the other service. Unforunately, when I called, the AOL computers were down! They wanted me to call back the next day (but I would be on an airplane) so I said: I am cancelling my service, when your computer comes back up, take care of it! Needless to say, they did not and the bill kept coming, but since it was American Express, we disputed it, and American Express did not pay it.

At some point my wife (owner of the company) called AOL to have then stop billing us as I had already cancelled the service. AOL told her that since she did not set-up the account, she could not cancel the service, even though she knew the password information, and that they could not even discus it with her. She told them that a former employee set up the account, it was her company and her company's credit card that was being charged. But AOL didn't care. They wanted to hear it from me.

After a year AOL figured out that they needed to cancel my account and leave us alone.

All in all, I was shocked that they have a special 800 number for cancellations! Talk about being too big.

Good luck in your search. Look to DSL, or cable modem, or broadband, or anything fast! And remember, my real dislike about AOL is that they log you off if you are away from the machine for 20 or so minutes. Often times I would get the "are you still there message" when I was working on a mail message and the "are you still there" message was buried under the mail window. Therefore, I would not see it and I would get logged off!

Reagrsd, JDF