Lawsuit Claims AOL Ripps Off Non-Tech-Savvy Seniors

(JimHood @ ConsumerAffairs) Harvey Dunn, 76, might be a lot like your grandfather, or maybe your elderly aunt. He hasn't really kept up with the evolution of the Internet. Want proof? Well, he still has an AOL email address, or did until recently.

He was also still paying AOL for outmoded, slow-as-dirt dial-up service, which he was no longer using since he had become a Time Warner client. When Dunn saw the monthly $17.95 charges on his credit card bill, he didn't realize that AOL was charging him for content and email services it gave away free to others.

Dunn is now the named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against AOL, accusing it of exploiting seniors. The suit charges that AOL never told millions of elderly "not tech-savvy" customers that it was no longer charging for content and email services, Courthouse News Service reports.

Dunn claims that AOL lists "AOL Service" on its bills, "recklessly perpetuating the illusion that paying subscribers are still receiving and using the same service they signed up for."

"AOL is well aware that the vast majority of its paying customers are not using its nearly obsolete 'dial-up' services, and misunderstand what they are paying for," the complaint states. "AOL's technology allows it to easily tell which of its paying customers are using AOL's dial-up ISP services. AOL knows that plaintiff, and millions of other consumers have absolutely no use for their paid accounts, or AOL dial-up service they do not need and are not using."

Back in the day, AOL was one of the top Internet service providers in the country, flooding Americans' mailboxes with CDs and floppy discs (remember those?) that would install AOL's software, enabling their machines to access the Internet via dial-up.

Hard to get rid of

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Like a bad case of the flu, AOL has always been hard to get rid of and for years has been the subject of bitter complaints, lawsuits and regulatory actions charging that AOL makes it so difficult to cancel that many consumers simply give up and continue paying.

Not that this situation is strictly past tense. Similar complaints continue to this day. In May, "CC" of Smyrna, Ga., said she had canceled her AOL account back in 2008.

"AOL ignored my cancellation and has been taking $37 a month from my Navy Federal Union account," she said in a complaint to ConsumerAffairs. "Because I have not been reading my bank account statements, I did not notice this and especially because I would have never thought AOL would do this to anyone. Nevertheless, how could they charge inactive accounts for so long?! I talked to someone this morning only to find out they can only credit me for 3 months."

The same thing happened to Sheri of Barnum, Minn., whose complaint hit our inbox about the same time as CC's.

"I cancelled my services with AOL back in 2007 and was told I would no longer be charged for the said services. I had automatic withdrawal from my bank account. Since 2007 I have had to contact AOL several times to question why $39.99 is being taken out of my bank account for services I no longer have. I was assured the issue would be taken care of," Sheri said.

"As of today (6 years later), I am still being charged for AOL services and again spoke to yet another customer service rep, who assured me it would be taken care of. However, I will not be able to recoup any of the charges they already had payment for. I am out almost $3,000.00 and am still being charged for these services with no end in sight."

"Walled garden"

During its heydey, AOL was what is called a "walled garden," offering not only Internet access but also tons of its own content, ranging from news to how-to articles, entertainment and games. In 2006, AOL unbundled its content and email, offering them for free in hopes of competing more effective with Google and Yahoo.

In recent years, AOL has been trying to reinvent itself as a producer of premium content. It has had some success with video. In ComScore's web video rankings for September, AOL topped Google as the property with the most video ads watched last month, with 3.7 billion views compared to the YouTube parent's 3.2 billion.

But it has been weighed down by Patch, a series of local news sites that have burned through $300 million without showing a profit or winning much acclaim.

Dunn's suit charges that it is well-known in the tech industry that AOL continues charging customers for services they no longer need or use, in effect propping up its less successful services by continuing to milk older subscribers.

He is represented by David Azar of Milberg LLP.