AOL demands new $2-a-month fee for phone support

News Type: Event — Wed Jul 2, 2008 5:29 PM EDT

If you continue using AOL, you just agreed to a $2-a-month price increase.

8.7 million AOL subscribers will get hit with a new 20% fee increase next month -- unless they agree to stop calling AOL's technical support lines.

A desperate AOL has already closed their cancellation lines on weekends and all major holidays -- but that's not enough to offset a huge drop in subscriber revenue. 75% of AOL's subscribers have already cancelled their service in the last four years, and AOL apparently needs to make up the lost revenue. So now subscribers will be restricted to using AOL chat for support or the online help "portal" unless their issue is a failed connection.

But they're also being enrolled in the $2-a-month program without even asking first -- a move which got AOL into deep trouble in 1996 when they tried to double every member's rate without permission. (A whopping 44 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against AOL for various unfair trade practices, though they focused on the fact that most customers were simply getting a busy signal.)

Even more ominously, AOL used the exact same wording that they used when they changed their terms of service in 1997 to allow them to sell subscribers' home phone numbers to telemarketers.

"Your continued subscription to the AOL service constitutes your acceptance of this change."

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