BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A lawsuit seeking to potentially cover hundreds of thousands of America Online subscribers accuses the Time Warner (TWX) unit of illegally billing customers by creating secondary accounts for them without their consent. The lawsuit, filed last month in St. Clair County Circuit Court on behalf of 10 AOL customers in six states says the company confused and deceived customers about the charges, stalled them from canceling unauthorized accounts and refused to return questioned fees. "AOL exploits its subscribers' confidential billing information to unlawfully generate additional revenue by charging subscribers for additional membership accounts that they neither order nor request," the lawsuit alleges, calling the scheme "common, uniform and continuing." The lawsuit, seeking class-action status, mirrors more than a dozen other actions that have been pending in state and federal courts throughout the country, said Stuart Talley, a Sacramento, attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Illinois lawsuit. All of the federal cases were consolidated in California two years ago, Talley said. Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman, said the company considers the Illinois lawsuit ''a legal rehash that has as much legal value as refiling your personal income taxes from four years ago.'' ''The important thing is that we deny the allegations now as we've done several times, and we will defend this case as we have other cases accordingly,'' he said, noting that AOL ''takes extraordinary efforts to resolve any issues the members raise.'' ''We have safeguards in place now that prevent unauthorized charges, and we have credit and refund policies that do justice to the consumer,'' he said. The lawsuit also names ICT Group, the outsourcing company AOL retained to respond to customer complaints and billing matters, did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Plaintiffs include an Illinoisan, two Californians, three Tennesseans, a West Virginian, two Alabamans and a New Yorker. No hearing date has been set on the Illinois case, which accuses AOL of violating Illinois' Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The latest lawsuit alleges that AOL misrepresented that subscribers may add up to seven different screen names to a membership account for free. But AOL "in many instances" spun off those screen names into additional membership accounts without the subscribers' knowledge, then charged and collected a separate monthly fee for each account. The company requires members to pay charges and fees by credit card, electronic withdrawals from their bank accounts or by adding to their telephone bills, giving subscribers no opportunity to review a bill before making a payment, the lawsuit says. To maintain its customer base, according to the lawsuit, AOL has instructed customer-service contractors such as ICT to prevent AOL subscribers from canceling their accounts "at all costs" and to resist giving refunds. Customers who complain are offered at least one month of free AOL Internet service instead of refunds or credits, while "unsatisfied customers who insist on canceling or terminating their AOL memberships are obstructed and delayed from doing so," the lawsuit says. Time Warner — the world's largest media company — has been holding exploratory talks with companies including Microsoft about a potential investment in or sale of AOL, which has become a hot property because of its booming advertising sales and ability to draw in large audiences online. AOL long was seen as a drag on Time Warner because of the steady decline of the dial-up Internet access business. But in recent months AOL successfully has been revamping its business model, moving away from the subscription business and selling more online advertising.
It's true. They have done it to me. After I cancelled 2 acounts in April they kept charging the card untill last month. After calling them and writting letters repeatedly they said they would fix it, they did not. I finally had to cancel the credit card to get it to stop. Then, after they couldn't suck from the card, they sent me credit threat letters telling me they would report it as bad credit if I did not pay. When I got them on the phone they agreed there was a mistake and I should get a refund, but, they wanted a credit card account number to forward the refund too. I said, "like hell" and told them to send me a check, and they said refunds are only available thru a credit card. Looks like I need to look into this lawsuit and join up!!! Thanks for the tip.
Anytime. Hope you get some of it back. My girlfriends brother went through the same thing after I got them to switch over. They still billed them for 4 months afterwards.
Seen the same problem myself. That was way back when, tho. I thought AOL had changed their tune. That's why we never went back. The service, then, was crappy, and we were billed for months after we cancelled. We had to cancel our card too, Rom, in order for them to finally stop taking $$ from us!
