http://www.nbc10.com/news/9406462/detail.html
The worst part of this is that they fired the poor guy whom they probably pressured into doing exactly what he did in the first place. "Absolutely don't let them cancel the account" they said, and provided him with weeks of training on possible rebuttals to even the most stubborn of cancel-happy customers. And then he gets caught on tape doing exactly what they tell him to and he gets fired to protect AOL's image. (AOL: you aren't fooling anyone)
I remember cancelling an AOL account once - and no, I wasn't stupid enough to sign up for AOL in the first place. I bought a Gateway computer back when they came with "A year of free Internet" through an MCI/Worldcom account going under the guise of "gateway.net". When Worldcom started faltering, I guess their deal with Gateway fell through and the "gateway.net" service evaporated, but Gateway still owed me three months of "free Internet". So they benevolently set me up with an AOL account without asking my permission. As soon as I realized that they had sent my particulars to the borg of all ISPs I immediately called to cancel the account. Fortunately for me I wasn't as nice as the guy in this clip - I told them flat out that I absolutely despised AOL and that I would abstain from using the Internet entirely if they were my only route to it - that way I only got 2 rebuttal attempts instead of a dozen. The worst part is that I'm STILL on their mailing list.
