A friend of mine has her broadband supplied by AOL, they fecked up the direct debits and took more money than they should, now they say she owes them £80 and won't release her broadband line until she pays up. She needs AOL to release the line/connection so she can sign-up elsewhere.
Question, can they withold her connection like this?
Any suggestions for an immediate way forward, proving to them that thsy have had more money than they should and she does infact not owe them £80 is going to take time and she needs internet access for her work.
Go to see a Solicitor and get the 'fixed fee one letter' deal. This should cost about thirty quid and will probably have the desired effect within a day or two of (recorded) delivery.
They did the same to me. I just changed provider, rang then tell them had got it wrong and lost a customer as a result. A risky stragtegy, but I then just ignored their letters and they went away.
Send them copies of bank statements proving payment and threaten them in return with legal action for something along the lines of "attempting to extort money with menaces". That'll wipe the smiles off of their smug faces. AFAIUI, all you need do is disconnect the cable, wipe their software off the machine (Be prepared for a total hard-drive wipe and reinstallation, though, as AOL writes to just about all of the software in the machine and is notoriously difficult to clear!) and sign up with, say, BT who will send you one of their modems and software. I cannot see how they (AOL) can block this, as they have no physical hold over her line - unless she uses them as her telephone line service provider?? (Do AOL do this?)
Freeserve tried it on with me when I went broadband (BT and happy with it!), sending me bills for dates after I had stopped utilising their "service", so I told them I would be taking them to the small claims court to seek recompense for the 6 hours or so of labour at £45* per hour that it had taken me to try and resolve the issue with them, that I was not prepared to waste any more of my time attempting to get them to understand hard written facts etc etc. It worked!
- £45 was what I claimed I could have made per wasted hour as a consultancy fee for V8 engine technical advice!!! Don't give in and allow yourself to be bullied. Badger.
They can (and are) refusing to issue a MAC migration code. This is how the line provider (BT) assigns the broadband to s service provider (ISP). The only alternative is to cancel, then wait, then reprovision a new broadband service.
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