by Dave Franklin

Created on: February 10, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

Agents of Lucifer?

This review is really about one small aspect of AOL, but it was enough to make me change services and I wanted to point out some of the problems that may not be obvious straight away. Right on with the show.

The first thing that I must say, by way of a disclaimer before I rip into the criticism, is that on a day-to-day basis I have always found AOL a good enough service. Ok its not the cheapest and it tends to be a bit choosy about what other software it is compatible with, but compared with the competition, I felt that it always held its own. The problems seem to arrive when you need to access the human element of the service. I have had two occasions when they have left me seething with frustration, the second being enough to break the camels back as it were and caused me to terminate my subscription.

A while ago I was experiencing a few problems with the download speed and the fact that I was experiencing a lot of crashes, I could find no obvious solution amongst the help functions embedded within the software so I connected to the human help line for a solution. After being connected to an operator I was given a list of operations to follow in an attempt to sort things out. This we will call solution A. The problem is not obvious at first, I followed the list of keystrokes and made the suggested changes and the last command was to restart your computer. Upon restarting the computer the problem was still in evidence so I got back in touch with the help desk. Upon being assigned a new operator, I described the problems again and was offered a solutionthat's right, solution A. I pointed out that I had tried this and was then offered a new set of operationsfor the record, solution B. After trying this to no success and contacting the help desk again I was dealt with by a different operator again and was offered a new solution, well not that new, solution A, then B then a whole new one, lets call it C and round it goes again. After about an hour I had been in touch with a dozen operators and after solution L they suggested that I rang the trouble shooting hotline. Needless to say I sorted the problem out by calling in a favour from a work colleague, no thanks to AOL.

About a month ago I was tempted to try another broadband provider, names are not important, and as it was not available in my area for a few weeks I entered my last month with AOL. This coincided with me changing bank accounts, for totally unrelated reasons and left me in the position

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