i read about the nightmare call some guy had trying to cancel his AOL account, and then tom sent me a link to an interview with the guy that includes a recording of the call.

this comes as no surprise to me. i been through similar experiences with AOL, Vonage and TiVo, and the only reason i don't remember more examples is that i usually just don't deal with these guys (my wife does…).

you can sign up for services on the web. they will take your billing information willingly, but when it comes to canceling, it's a different story: 

• they don't let you cancel the account online (including online-only services, which is ridiculous)
• you have to be an online detective to find the phone number for customer service, or to a special number in case you want to cancel (so they can keep you on hold an extra 10 minutes).
• when you finally call them (during business hours only) you have to wait a v-e-r-y long time to speak with an actual person, and i believe the waiting music/infommercials are designed to make you hang-up
• then dealing with the customer service rep is another torture 

AOL claims they fired the employee who took the call. it is probably true, but i doubt he did something which is really against the company's policy. the calls i had with customer service reps from different companies trying to cancel stuff are too similar. i believe there is an industry practice and guidelines on how to deal with customers calling to cancel, and known tactics to use in order to avoid the cancellation.

i know for a fact that some companies have special customer service reps to deal with cancellation calls, and i am sure they are measured on their success rate in preventing the customer from leaving. they'll use tactics such as give you credit for 1, 2 months for you to give them another chance (knowing that in many cases you will not pass on a free offer, and then forget to cancel), upgrade your service for free for a while, etc.  it does not sound too evil, but the result is people forget to cancel. this approach is a bit similar to rebates, which is a topic for another post.. but the thing about rebates is that much less than 50% of people actually submit/collect them.