Please be warned! (AOL)

Member Name: kimgraham

Product:	AOL
Date:	19/11/01 (239 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No massive bills

Disadvantages: holes in security

I used to be very happy with AOL but I am only able to put this on site today because I happen also to have NTLworld. I am writing this as a warning to those of you who use AOL. There seems to be a fundamental flaw in their security procedures.

I have come across the same problem twice in three months and felt compelled to share it with you, lest you find yourself in a similar position.
This afternoon I went to log on to the Internet. AOL wouldn’t let me on- invalid password was the message. I assumed I had mis-typed it, as you do, and so typed it in again, and again and….. By this time I was beginning to feel a little fractious, as I knew a reply to a very important e-mail was waiting for me. To fully understand why I might get so wound up I will take you on a little trip back through time.

This summer someone (who was known to me and had been lodging in my house) hacked into my AOL e-mails and forwarded some highly personal ones to members of my family. They also changed the password and locked me out of my Hotmail account. I am not sure why, there wasn’t much of interest in there! Hotmail were excellent and returned my account to its normal status within 24 hours. AOL were not so helpful. I took legal advice and was told that both a civil and legal offence had been committed. I phoned AOL and reported what I had discovered. I had proof as the stupid fool that had perpetrated all of this had forwarded my e-mails from his AOL account to my daughter. We had the evidence! They must act- no. This is where the security procedure becomes unhelpful. I went through all the personal questions without any problem until the final one. What were the last 4 digits of my credit card? The conversation then became rather interesting. “ I can’t give you those, as I do not have a credit card”
“You pay by credit card”
“No I don’t, I pay by direct debit.”
“We don’t d
o direct debits”
“Well I am very sorry but I am sitting here with a pile of bank statements that tell me that you are paid by direct debit out of my bank on the 14th of the month. If you want any more proof I can tell you that you overcharged me by £2.50 last month, as I am on the £14.99 flat rate and you took £17.49. I would not know that if I wasn’t me would I?”

“Ah yes madam” (try to imagine a thick Irish lilt at this point), I can see that .I will organise a refund, but I am sorry I cannot discuss your account without the four numbers”.

By now my blood was boiling. Somebody was committing an illegal act on my account and they wouldn’t even discuss it with me. Worse than that they insisted that I must have had a credit card when I signed up. They were most insistent about it, as if I wouldn’t know something like that!

I then faxed copies of my bank statements to their headquarters in Waterford. Surely this would do the trick? Perhaps???
No. They wanted the four numbers. I was now getting very irate. I telephoned customer services again. I demanded to speak to a supervisor. That took powers of considerable persuasion, but bulldog Kim was NOT going to be fobbed off any more! Eventually, and with not very good grace, a more senior person came on the line. I explained, quite nicely, that I had not had a credit card for 10 years. I had been with AOL for two so signing up with one was an impossibility! “Do you have an electron card?” “Err, yes. Three.” “Tell me the numbers”. So I did, and it was not any of them! What a surprise! I then threatened legal action. That got things moving! I called in the police to investigate the case. All of a sudden AOL were more helpful. They asked me to write in with the whole story and evidence of the hacking and then they would re-set my security with the number of my current account Electron card.
r>I sent it all off. I eventually had some sort of apology, but to this day they have taken no action against the hacker.

So, this is where we came in today. I already am very jumpy about the whole business, so you can imagine my angst when I discovered our passwords had been changed. I immediately phoned the AOL helpline. We went through the security procedures- the last four digits etc…
“I am sorry, Madam, those are not the numbers we have here.”
At this point I nearly lost it. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to scream down the phone! I didn’t of course, but the operator was left in no doubt that I was pretty miffed. She went and spoke to her superior, but to no avail.

I know what had happened. A few weeks ago my card was eaten by the machine because I stupidly sent my daughter to the ATM down the road for a bit of cash. She had forgotten that I had recently changed my PI number. Oh well, accidents happen and I was promptly sent a replacement. You guessed it- the number, of course, was different.

Now the question is, would you think to phone AOL and tell them you had a new card number under those circumstances? I certainly didn’t, and if I had it would not have helped, as I no longer had the original card to phone in with, so they would not have spoken to me to process the new one! AAGGHHH! The level of frustration at this point is quite great. As I write this, someone is accessing my AOL account and AOL will do nothing until I can provide those numbers. My bank is not contactable until tomorrow morning. I wonder how much damage can be done in that time.
Thanks AOL, thanks a lot.

I should go on to tell you a bit about their product. There are already lots of good ops on this. It is very good unless you want to speak to someone or if you want to un- install it from your computer! Un-installing seems to cause lots of problems.
I use their flat rate £14.99 a month for 24/7 a
ccess, which is very good value. They have their own messenger service, which is very good, and I particularly like the e-mail interface. It has it’s own browser which I am not especially keen on, but I run Netscape, IE and opera from mine and they work well. I have also noticed that it is faster and more reliable when I dial up with my NTL line and obviously less so with the BT one. Read into that what you will!

All in all I would recommend it, just take heed of my warning!