I've insulted AOL before (look here and here and here and here).  In fact, I think of AOL as the whipping boy of the internet, inept at all things technical, unable to provide a true internet connection regardless of how hard they try, apparently uninformed of the true meaning of customer service — or service period — and wholly unable to supply any level of support.

What brings this up?

My mother sends out a family newsletter on a monthly basis.  The newsletter is actually developed as a graphic image (JPG) to ensure the greatest compatibility.  She generates the graphic file and uploads it to a web site which I provide.  She then sends an e-mail to all of the recipients with a link to the newsletter file, often including snippets from the newsletter or other information in the message.

Because she had never been online before, I originally put Mom on AOL so as to simplify the online experience for her.  AOL shields its customers from the internet via a fat client, so she didn't have to learn various pieces of software in order to browse the web, send and receive e-mail, and utilize IM services.

I always said this was a temporary setup since I abhor AOL so much and wanted to eventually move her to a real internet service.

I therefore began to move her over to other internet clients as preparation for moving her off of AOL and over to something else.  That meant setting up a new e-mail account so she could use a POP3 client rather than the AOL built-in mail system, helping her utilize a separate web browser outside of AOL, and so on.

Mom began sending the newsletter out via her POP3 e-mail client and immediately began having problems.  Most of the time the e-mail was simply never sent.  I first treated this as a problem with the e-mail client, but that was an assumption even I knew was probably incorrect since I had setup the client and e-mail account and new it was working properly (I have an account on the same domain which was not having problems).  I then looked into possible problems with the mail server but, as I mentioned above, knew that was unlikely since the other accounts on the same server and domain were functioning properly.  I even looked at it as a problem with her computer.

All of this, I think, was my attempt to keep from facing the reality that AOL was causing the problem.  Sadly, after troubleshooting every other possible cause, I was left with that final option.

I then tested it from her PC using various messages and found that AOL was blocking them as spam.  Basically, if the e-mail had a link in it and wasn't being sent via their client, they blocked it — period.

This included the newsletter e-mail that had some information about recent events and a link to the web site in it.  They also blocked messages which were pages copied from both the Microsoft and AOL web sites (both including links).  They would block the message if a URI was present regardless of any other information in the message.

Once I had this documented, I contacted AOL's customer (dis)service.

First we tried online support (calling it "support" is a misnomer).  The person I got in touch with was as brainless as the carpet under my feet — literally dumber than a sack of hair.  I had to repeat my questions more than six times and never received an answer.  Even my mother, at this point, was asking if the person was even reading what we were typing in the chat window.  Obviously they weren't.

The next option was to call them, so I used their help function to determine who would handle such a problem (the Postmaster).  After locating the contact information for their Postmaster e-mail support, I called them.  I might as well have called a restaurant and asked for help with my internet connection — chances are they would have known more.

I supplied them with the information I was seeing (an actual error from AOL saying the message was blocked because it was spam, including the error numbers and the contact information provided with the message [which directed me to the Postmaster group]).  The "technical" support person in that group hadn't a clue what I was talking about and gave me nothing but double-talk, attempted confusion via technobabble, and a myriad of excuses about the problem being with the receiving server and/or mailboxes.  Since I own and run the server, domain and mailboxes in question, that didn't fly.  The technobabble didn't work on me since I've been in this industry for a very long time and happen to have a clue about how it all works.

The mindless git eventually submitted a ticket to test connectivity to the server (which I told him was not the problem).  I stressed to him again that the error message AOL was providing said to contact them since the mail was incorrectly being tagged as spam.  This made no difference.

Having reached my limit with the situation, I gave up and told Mom we'd be migrating her off of AOL immediately — which I did that very evening.  I setup an account with EarthLink, got her client software setup and configured, and removed AOL from her system.  I assured her that our relationship with AOL was over at that moment and I would call them the next day to cancel the account.

After showing her the differences in her new access methodology, I went home and made a note to call AOHell in the morning.

When I did call them, my experience was consistent (which, I suppose, says something).  They apologized for the bad customer service experience and assured me that was unusual (not in my experience, I said, especially twice in the same night from two entirely separate teams).  They attempted to salvage the account by making all manner of useless offers (no thanks, I said, we're outta here).  Finally they canceled the account for me.  That was on a Monday.

On Wednesday of the following week (10 days later), I got billed by AOL again.  Think I called 'em?  You bet your ass I did, and this time I was very unpleasant.

Happily, I got the billing issue cleared up and can honestly say America Off-Line and I are no longer seeing each other.

What about Mom?

She's quite happy with EarthLink and her new internet access.  The newsletter and other e-mails are all working fine now (not a single problem whatsoever).  In fact, she's seen a significant improvement all around.  When I asked her for an update, here's what she said:

AOL must have been a big problem 'cause my email now works a whole lot better than it did. It's faster and I actually feel I'm getting the mail I should.

I'm happy to have ended a very bad relationship with a company who doesn't care, doesn't have a clue, doesn't know the definition of service (whether customer or internet or other), and tries diligently to abuse its own customers.  How sad.

The moral of the story?  I should have listened to my own sarcastic advice from so long ago: Friends don't let friends use AOL.