AOL amending cancellation policy?

As part of a $3 million settlement, AOL has agreed to change their cancellation policy. See today's Wall Street Journal for the details.

This is like déjà-vu, all over again.

AOL, who pioneered aggressive cancellation “sales,” has been lambasted for this process for years. For those unaware (I envy you), this process is one where AOL trains their customer service reps to sell you on not cancelling. This customer-retention practice is unscrupulous and involves all kinds of tricks and techniques. This practice includes putting the callers on hold for over 10 minutes (hoping they will hang up without cancelling); restating the question of why do you want to cancel five different ways until you are so frustrated you shout obscenities and then they can justifiably hang up (before you can cancel, of course); and my favorite, the False Acknowledgement, "Okay, Mr. Kellick, we will discontinue your service," only to bill you again next month and the next and so on.

This was supposed to be stopped in 2000. AOL had a ton of bad press after failing to cancel the subscription of a federal judge in DC (nice one), but alas the practice continued and was copied by other companies (see Vonage posts).

We shall see, hopefully AOL gets the message this time, but I'll believe it when I see it.