Letter of Complaint to AOL Customer Service

Sent to AOL customer service after their completely incompetent handling of a technical problem.  If I get a response I'll post it.

 

Dear AOL,

 

I discovered on Wednesday evening that my AOL service was not working correctly, and was preventing me from connecting to the Internet.  Running through the self-diagnostics on the software this told me that there was a missing file and to reinstall the software.  This I did.  It did not resolve the situation.  When I phoned technical support on a number that charges at 5p/min. I was told by recorded announcement that there were extremely long delays, and I should connect to the Internet and seek help on-line. (Which I was not able to do because your software was "apparently" not working).  After 15 minutes of waiting I gave up.

 

The following day I checked the AOL homepage from work to see if there were any known issues.  None were listed.  That evening I tried again, and reinstalled the software again with the same result.  Again I phoned technical support.  Eventually I got through (after a 20 min wait).  Only to be told it was a known fault (with the type of modem that I was using that you supplied me with), would be fixed within 2 hours (impressive since it's already been out for at least two days, sorry I don't believe you) and that I should connect through Internet Explorer.

 

Please can you therefore provide me with answers to the following:

 

1. Why you couldn't put an announcement on you technical support line to tell people this and save me running up a phone bill of at least £1.75 (cynically I suspect that this is so that you make yet more money from your customers)?

 

2. You didn't list this supposed known issue on the website homepage?

 

3. Why your support staff are extremely unhelpful and rude?

 

4. Whether you are prepared to refund me the cost of my phone calls?

 

5. Whether you are prepared to refund me the proportion of my monthly charge while I have been unable to use the Internet through the usual means and this problem continues?

 

6. What my MAC code is so that I can move to another broadband supplier?

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Regards