An AOL Watch reader, dissatisfied with AOL's performance, sends the story of their encounter with AOL's corps of "retention agents"...

After AOL hooked me with the reduced rates for a year (locked in), I sent AOL a FAX in which I indicated my intention to terminate their service at 1 second before the one year anniversary. Not only did they comply but they canceled me a day early.

Within the last week, I was contacted by a re-recruitment agent who did not have the necessary facts (connection rate, i.e. --- which by the way was never better (and usually less) than 14400 during the year I was with them). I explained to the fellow I would only resubscribe ONLY after I had independent verification of optimum (36+ Kb per second) connection speed. In my area, paying full rate for half the usual connection rate (14400 as opposed to 28800) seems to equate to paying double (it takes twice as long or longer to get the same service).

End of conversation with AOL.

;'-{)