I do not understand how anyone can think that aol offer value for money. I have been with them for over 10 years and have watched the service go downhill rapidly over the past months I will be glad when my contract ends in 11 months time and I can move elsewhere. Avoid them like the plague
AOL broadband Reviews
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I have been with aol for years and great service i resently put phone and internet with aol and since the change all i get is cutting out broadband. I rang customer care who gave me it your equipment . I said no way and they said they cant test because netgear and i need a different modem and if i want to buy one they will test lol i said no way and why dont you send me a cheap aol one. I was transfered and told that they will send me a router if i agree to a new contract, whats funny is i agreed new 18 month contract less than 25 days ago, i was told this it was wrong contract and i would need to restart contract. I told them were to stick it as you know they will charge me cancelation fee. I final talk to someone who will check my phone line for faults. It took 50 minutes to check my line . Why do they blame equipment every time you call . Im starting to regrete staying with aol .
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OMG, I thought it was my laptop at fault (silly me), until my son was using his laptop and came to me with a problem, I have been having this problem since last year, been with Aol when it was the propper AOL, since carphone wharehouse take over and I am speaking to hello India, london calling, absolute rubbish service or lack of service, ask for a mac code to finally leave aol, the person from India was only interested to know why I want to leave, why would I want to stay, they are taking my money, and I have to pay for customer lack of service, I am the looser all round they are getting paid regardless. I have had companies contacted me in the past to change service provider and I was loyal to Aol, guess what! 2012, time for change. I wish I had viewed these review before now, thanks people, Your experience is exactly the same as myself after being with Aol from 1998, it show me that Aol does not give a dam about their customers, only the money.
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My god wished i had read all these comments before changing my aol ! been with aol for donkeys years and all was good until 3 months ago i decided to have the whole package, broadband,phone and calls etc, was told it would be £25.70 per month - great i thought thats a saving of £20 per month....... wrong... my monthly bills have £98 and above !!! but can i access the online billing service - no can i get any customer service replies / help - no !!! gotta get out of this contract somehow - any suggestions would be appreciated
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Whatever you do avoid this service. I set my mother and parents-in-laws up with AOL a few years back. Now when you try to do anything with them (change payment method, etc.) you wait literately hours. There staff are script monkeys and no one can help you. AVOID, at all cost.
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I had exactly the same, saying i would get half price broadband for 3 months and then receiving a contract saying i would pay 19.00 a month, also I have had my AOL mail hacked into and receiving mail from AOL customer services and finding out after opening them that they were a scam complained to AOL and they wernt interested in my complaint.. Also they keep phoning several times a week from a cal centre overseas and try to sell you things, so annoying. You tell to stop as they are harrassing you and they apologise and the next day they call again. Very irritating company.
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I must agree with all the other reviews. I first joined AOL in 1999 and found them very good, even better when they went over to a set monthly fee instead of the old 1p a minute and you could always get online Tech help and a free phone number for help, that has all changed since it was taken over in 2006.Soon after that, certain things went from AOL, ie- Online Tech Chat, Free phone assistance and a very poor service. I recently had connection problems and had to phone AOL for assistance. They informed me, that my ADSL router was no longer compatible with AOL ( nice of them to notify me about this before hand, which they never) .Thankfully I did have a D-Link wire/or cable router, which AOL supplied me with a couple of years ago, but with no wireless USB dongle. But i finally got back online again and everything was fine up until Friday 27th Jan2012, when I was contacted by an AOL customer services rep about renewing my 18 subscription, which I agreed to and would get the first 3 months at half price, which I thought was good, as I pay 13.99 a month, so a 3 month saving of just under £7.00 I thought was good, that was until I recieved a conformation email today, showing that my new monthy payments will be going up to £19.40 a month, (something the rep never informed me of on the phone) therefore i'm looking at other providers and going to leave AOL. I wouldn't recommend anyone going with AOL, they've certainly got worse instead of better and I think AOL's days are numbered.
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All the comments that AOL have gone down the pan are so very true. I have an ongoing connection problem and lost count how many times I have had to phone their so called helpline. Even undestanding them is difficult at times. On nine seperate occasions I have peen promised a call back within specific times regarding my connection problem. I have NEVER had the promised call back. AVOID AOL AT ALL COSTS!!!!!
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Looks like I will be moving from AOL after about 10 years. Broadband went off before Christmas, its taken three weeks to get back on line, had a visit from talk talk engineer who confirmed my equipment was ok but problem with line, had a visit from BT engineer who worked on cable in my road and got me back on line, however speed is only 0.3 mb I used to get 1.5 mb. Aol have said they have tested the line and what I get is all I can expect. So all of those calls to India and visits from engineers have been a waste of time. I suppose Virgin may be my best move. AOL has become useless.
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I have been an AOL customer since... well, it must be about 10 years now at least.
AOL used to be amazing. It was cheap, it was unrestricted, it was quick and had great pings. Customer service also used to be OKAY!
Since carphone warehouse took over, things have taken a nose dive. Awful low caps appeared on your bandwidth, the speed is poor - and now intermittent with frequent connection losses. It is almost becoming unusable as things time out left, right and centre as the connection drops. It is awful that Carphone Warehouse still uses the AOL name, as they are ruining what it used to stand for. Pretty good, very cheap and reliable, service. Now it just means "avoid".
Tech support is impossible to get any support from. They have a sheet they read through, all to do with your equipment not troubleshooting the line or their stuff. There appears to be no way to escalate beyond this and it takes forever.
Looking forward to May when we are finally out of contract and can move on elsewhere. I used Virgin Media in my flat over the last two years whilst home remaind on AOL. Needless to say, Virgin were FANTASTIC (although not without problems, their forum staff were VERY helpful getting a difficult problem resolved).
Just... 4 more months of internet hell :( -
I'm going to have to move away from AOL. The help email desk does not seem to respond at all. What's the point of AOL creating the impression that help queries are responded to when its just one way?
I've been cut off for six days now. Plenty of my friends have said they think AOL are a complete waste of time. I feel the same way.
Had good reports of Plusnet. -
Further to my post yesterday, no call received from James last night as promised. I have sent an email of complaint and await the outcome. Still get speeds of 1.4mgps - the 25 mgps upgrade clearly hasn't worked, but then again I didnt expect it would.
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The internet service I receive from AOL is not up to standards. My upload/download speed is around 0.20mpbs and 0.50mbps. I play online gaming and the connection I have is decent enough but when I try to use my laptop at the same time I cannot do anything due to the connection being that bad, I am very unsatisfied with AOL broadband and their connection.
I had too ring their customer support because my connection was not working. Although we managed to get it working again, the staff member we spoke to had not been pleasant.
I would rate AOL 4/10. -
I have been with AOL for more than 10 years. The internet in my area was down from 21/12/11 until close to midnight on 29/12/11. When the service resumed there was no apology from AOL for the inconvenience caused to customers for 8 days loss of the internet. That is poor customer service to say the least. I suggest AOL considers including a dongle in their package to increase the options available to customers in case of another protracted loss of service.
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I have had extensive talks and correspondance with AOL Customer Services who arranged for a technician to call me. When I discussed the issues, the technician freely admitted that they were down to AOL's own software which is not supported by Talk Talk and will not be fixed by them. This admission was also made following an earlier complaint but things are now getting worse. I was told that AOL will not be in existence in the near future and that as the software fails - I will experience even more problems.
I have no problems with any website working in Firefox and was told to manually transfer all the websites from AOL's "My Favourites" and work in Firefox as it was better than AOL. What an admission from one of AOL's own staff!!
I chose AOL back in 1996 because access was via their own server - not IE. If I have to work within Firefox - I can see no reason to remain with AOL and will probably transfer to another ISP in the next few weeks -
I have just spent 2hrs and 10mins on the phone with the AOL helpline trying to get back on line and I was paying for the call. I started with x2 level one technicians who both ended up telling me my laptop was at fault. I was not having that so I asked to speak to someone who could give me a MAC code as I was moving on after 14 yrs. I then spoke with Mandy who was very sympathetic and arranged to send out a new router and upgrade me to 25mbps free of charge. She also tried to get me to transfer to AOL as my phone provider so that my helpline calls to them would be free. She also put me through to a level two technician who tried to help resolve the problem but we ended up being cut off and the customer satisfaction survey started to run. I rang back and fortunately their system recognised I had already reported a fault and put me through to another level two who within 20 minutes had me back online - all 3 computers and my smartphone. He has also promised to ring me back this evening to check everything is OK. If only I could have spoken to this technician straight away I would only have only been on the phone for 20 minutes. Thank you James the level two technician. Not sure how much longer I will stay with AOL but only because of the lack of knowledge of the level one technicians
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Well ive been with aol since 1996,just renewed my package 15.31/month inc line rental and im getting 16MB,In my view the problem is normally with BTs infrastructure not with aol.
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I have been with AOL for well over the last 15 years. I carried out a speed check on my broadband line to day and found the download speed was 132 KBits/s. The AOL technician i was talking to about this then had the cheek to ask me to repeat this test every 6 hours and then to phone them back if i make this call it will be the fourth call i have made to complain about slow speed. Their service is terrible do they really think that when a customer is paying for their top speed that this sort of service is acceptable. I would advise anyone else looking for broadband to avoid AOL.
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Sorry to spoil the party but I have been with AOL for 7 years without problem ,
Rarey needed to speak to them , everything runs fine , only get 3 meg but thats the same for most services in my area due to the old copper lines from the BT exchange .
Some people have mentioned expensive phone calls to customer services, I have their call package so customer service calls are free . I have also just transfered my line rental to them without a problem and by paying 12 months upfront got it for £9.50 a month , BT is going up to over £14 in Jan . Thank you AOL ! -
Add me to the list of disgruntled long term AOL subscribers now looking to change ISP.
I am in the process of phasing out my WinXP PC and going totally Mac. AOL support for this platform is p1ss poor. Three weeks ago, I experienced the total failure of my AOL connection via any of the computers or modems at my disposal. (At my brother's house, my laptop connects up just fine.) I am convinced that the problem is them rather than me. AOL Tech Support and Custommer Relations just stall. One even had the cheek to offer me a contract extension!!!
I have nine months of a fixed term contract to run. I coming to the conclusion that it would be worth forfeiting the money to get a service that ACTUALLY WORKS. -
i always wonder why ofcom or the ombudsman or someone doesnt just have a read of thede comments and then get on to aol for not providing the service they are charging us for.
ive got an engineer comiong tommorow he will probs treat me like an idiot ask he lots of basic stupid questions and then just make up some fault ie a filter or the router which are all new being faulty so he can charge me for the visit i just got a phone call to say he was coming " all the way from teeside" he must be thinking im just calling him out for the company cos im bored or summit .
Ive had speeds of around 430kbs im sure i had faster than that when i was on dialup when i told him that he just giggled. i think thats the trouble we just seem to put up with it and dont complain and they get away with it,people just dont have the time i understand but thats what all these consumer protection bodies are supposed to protect us from these people but they dont.
thats my penny worth roll on fibre optivc in my area. and roll on the day my contract ends with aol so i can try another . -
I have now been chasing AOL for over 10 weeks for my MAC code so that I can escape their slovenly service. Since my initial request I have submitted 4 emails, 6 telephone calls and 2 letters .... and still no response. Directions on how to submit a complaint on their site keep changing. Basically this organisation is breaking the law and the sooner they go out of business the better. Don't touch them with a barge pole.
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I have been with AOL for around 14yrs. Since The Carphone Warehouse/TalkTalk became involved with them the service has been dreadful. I am experiencing freeze outs when I use a website from My Favourites in that I just get a white screen and the inevitable "connecting to" yet if I post the link into Firefox - instant access.
Response times are appalling within AOL but if I switch to Firefox - it's like lightening.
Sending an email with any graphics in it can take up to 15 minutes so I tend not to bother or send it via Firefox
I wrote a letter of complaint and had a phone call from them about 2 months ago. They admitted that the problems were with AOL software but that they did not support or service that software because it was dealt with by America!!
I commented that I didn't think for one moment that I was the only person complaining so what were they doing about it in the way of contacting their American counterparts - I'm still waiting for the answer!!
AOL are losing a lot of customers and it's little wonder given their negative attitude and response to the complaints. If things continue like this - I will certainly be moving on
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I moved to SKY who cancelled with AOL membership after 10 years. I was unable to get to speak to an operator to cancel my membership. AOL took money from my account without notifying me. I spoke to customer services who advised it was because I was still in contract . They did not notify me of the money that was coming out. They also advised that I paid more for my membership because I paid by card. The operator did not even know how much my monthly subscription was. I have wrote twice to customer complaints for a response, they have not even had the courtesy to send an acknowledgement to my complaint even though the website states they will reply to complaints
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I have been an aol customer for 12 years and never had a problem. However, 6 weeks ago I changed my line rental from BT to AOL and since then not a day has gone by when i have not lost connection. Every ten minutes or so the router flashes and i lose connection for anything up to 10 minutes.
Have not had any difficulty getting through to the call centre and they are helpful in getting it started again, but this is just a short fix. -
I have been with aol for approx 12 years and had no complaints until last year or 2 but boy are they rubbish now!!
Have been trying to cancel my account for over a week and it just hasn't happened yet. Slow speeds, crashes, expensive customer service tel No's, then when you get to speak to someone they start the hard sell regardless of why you are calling. Very quick to email and confirm changes acceptable to them but they just will not confirm calls made to cancel account.
Hopeless, seems the rot set in when AOL sold off the UK operation a few years back.
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I've been with aol for nearly 20 years. I have now had enough. You cannot get through to their customer services. As soon as you mention cancelation or you want a mac code, they put you back on hold. You get bounced around india, manilla and south africa then back to india to do it all over again. They press a red button i think to piss you off if you want to cancel. No lie, i spent 4 hours on hold one saturday morning trying to obtain a mac code. I never got it. i ended the call through my phone battery going flat. You always get through to an indian call centre. they dont speak english, dont understand it, they dont listen to what you say, they pass you onto another department that just keeps you on hold and hold and hold and hold. If you want customer service, do not go with AOL. I'm trying to find a supplier on reliability and not cost.
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I have put up with AOL for well over ten years, but I have now had enough. It is forever saying 'Oops, there is a problem and AOL is shutting down'
Logging onto AOL is a nightmare and it is slow. So that is it, I tried to go into billing to find out how long my contract has to run, guess what ? I can't, I just get the message 'Maxed out' due to amount of incoming requests. Crap service. -
Hi, Been with AOL since dial-up then Broadband for 10years. Service has been good untill changing to Neatgear N router (which they don't support, ONLY g they provide) had a few problems and got some support from AOL & when they couldn't Netgear are very helpfull. In all if speeds are slowing down its usualy your PC temp files etc buy some maintenance software have a good anti virus and yes turning the router off for 10 to 30 secs can help. Routers don't last for ever (there made in China) I'm on my 5th and there Help desks are in India. Top Tip, if your router/line is down Wifi to the next door neighbour (ask first for password) online help is free. Better the Devil you know as they all have bad customer service if you read all these reviews, haven't found a good one yet, so staying with AOL for now. The whole street has just had new BT Lines from exchange (Due to Lightning damage) NOW SPEEDS ARE ALOT FASTER.
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Worst customer service ever, if any. Takes at least 15min for somebody to answer when you call them. Calls are to India so cost a fortune :). If broadband is down they do not do anything, just apologise and ask you to wait. I fed up with them now and want to change my broadband provided. Called AOL week ago to ask for MAC code which you need for changing provider. However after 1 week waiting for code to arrive I called them and was told that code never been ordered. Now need to wait another 5 days for it to arrive. Will it????who knows.......
