When you call Earthlink to cancel an account that you've had for years, but haven't used for years, and for which they've been getting hundreds of dollars per year forever, they put you on hold forever.

Guess I should have chosen another option...

Somehow I wound up with a MusicMatch(?) or MusicBox(?) account being paid for out of my checking account. When I saw it on my checking account I called to find out what it was. I never did get a firm answer of who / how it got started. The account was being charged to me, but had never been activated or used. They told me I couldn't cut off the account because I didn't open it. But they wouldn't tell me who did open it, because they didn't have mine or my wifes name down as the contact person. They tried to blame it on my kids stealing my credit info and starting the account. That might have worked on many people, except my kids are grown and don't live in my house. We went around for about 45 minutes, up and down their management team, no one wanted to close the account, until I threatened to call the U.S. Attorney General.

Suddenly, I got someone on the line who would cancel the account and they refunded my money.

Customer disservice at it's best. I still called the A.G., screw 'em, and they are being investigated.

You got phished.

That happened to me with Columbia House (DVD's).

No arguments, they cancelled the account immediately.

Of course, I did threaten to keep the monthly offerings and not pay for them.

No, it wasn't phishing. It was simply me trying to cancel a long-time account with someone with whom I'd had an account that I finally decide I was paying too much for too-little value (i.e., an anywhere dial-up wasn't worth twenty-five bucks a month).

Similar problem with AOL. they bought compuserve, whom I had an account with, took six months to get the 4.95 weekly thing stopped. I don't think it really stopped until I switched banks. That did them in.

Rand

I have had an earthblink account since 1997 and am thinking about cancelling it. I can cancel from my on-line account screen.

Dennis

Laf, the filter did not like on-line as a single word

Make three contacts, make sure that the calls are logged, use the direct lines rather than the 800's. make sure they are at least 5 minutes, then hang up. After the third one, stop paying, cut off access through your CC or your bank. Wait till cutoff, then contact them, and say that you tried to cancel 3 times, and to remove the late fee's.

I had a problem like that with AOL, and with my old wireless provider. Then again I'm not anal about my credit, though it shouldn't be a hit on the credit.

On the one hand, I signed up for NetZero plus or platinum or goldplated or whatever, for $9.95 a month to avoid the on-line time restrictions when we have to use dialup on our laptop when we travel.

On the other hand, I can't remember the last time we traveled somewhere that didn't have either Ethernet or WiFi in the rooms.

Hmmmmm...

I can cancel from my on-line account screen.

Have you actually tried it? I clicked on that link. I got a message that says "For security reasons, this function can only be performed by telephone."

I never did get an answer as to HOW they got my info to open the account. I keep two different credit / debit cards for life. One I use daily, the other is for internet transactions. MusicMatch(?) had the daily card number in their records.

So if it was phishing, it was done from a grocery store, gas station, pharmacy etc. I know they never would tell me who opened the account.

Oddly enough, I never had a hold problem with Earthlink, and found their support a pleasure to what little extent I ever needed it.

However, if you have a dialup account at, say, $20-something a month, they will try to talk you down to a more limited dialup plan as a backup to your broadband, say, for $9.95 a month. And if that doesn't work, or you later cancel that, they will try to talk you down to e-mail only at $3.95 a month, with the first 6 months or whatever at $2.95, so you can retain the e-mail address but access it via your other ISP.

I had Earthlink for dialup prior to Broadband and was very pleased with their service.