Going through our logs we can tell that nearly a dozen of you are still using AOL via dial-up. For lots of people in remote locales it’s their only choice, and starting at the end of the month their bills are going to be going up a whopping $2 a month from $9.99 to $11.99. That’s about 20%, but they don’t have to pay it; AOL is offering users the chance to keep their $9.99 plans if they pinky swear to not call technical support if its not a connection-related issue. How exactly does this work?
Does AOL give them a different support number so they can tell who’s who? Does the technician’s caller-ID pop up and display, “This is a $9.99 customer, do not help”? Are they shunned in AOL chatrooms as being unclean? We’re not sure.
We’re pretty sure AOL is doing this because there are many people who would call AOL support for non-dial-up related problems. Grandma knows they can help with some problems and assumes they’re there to help with all problems. While it’s weird making customers choose a different plan to avoid this problem, we can completely understand. [CNet, via Consumerist]
