Just Cancel the @#%$* Account!

An anonymous reader writes "PC World Senior Editor Tom Spring signed up for 32 online accounts. Then tried to cancel all of them. The most difficult to cancel: NetZero. The easiest to cancel: Consumer Reports Online and The New York Times TimesSelect. His experience was rated on a number of criteria, and highlights the hoops that commercial enterprises put in place to keep their 'customers'. From the article: 'I had a hard time canceling my $5 monthly Gold Classmates.com account, too. I couldn't find any information on how to cancel until I entered the word cancel In the site's search engine. Classmates.com spokesperson John Uppendahl confirmed that there is no other way to find cancellation information. But that was only the first hoop I had to jump through to cancel my membership. Classmates.com also forced me to click through several Web pages reminding me of the benefits I'd lose. Finally my clicking ended at a generic Member Support e-mail contact page containing a blank 'Your Question' field. Though the form said nothing about cancellations, I used it to request that the service cancel my subscription. The next day I received an e-mail message confirming that the service had accepted my request.'"

please cancel slashdot subscription zonk is nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

how do I cancell slash dot.. or zonk?

Vonage

[dj245]

Article says Vonage is now a no-hassle cancelation.

Back when I canceled my Vonage account some 2 years ago, it took a 2 hour hold time, plus mailing their hardware back at my expense to cancel.

Plus now I get monthly "Come back to Vonage and save!" letters in the mail that I can use for kindling. I guess he hasn't gotten his first letter yet.

that reminds me of a similar situation

[larry bagina]

If me girlfriend wants to have sex, she strokes my cock 3 times. If she doesn't want to have sex, she strokes my cock 100 times.

There is an easy way

[edwardpickman]

Personally I just change my bank account once a month. Changing your address once a month helps with the other bills. If you are still having trouble with companies that won't stop billing you for cancelled services just change your name and social security number monthly. If all else fails changing the country you live in monthly is a sure fire cure to billing woes. What if you run out of countries? No problem there are new ones every year. Seems a lot of countries like to change their name too.

Re:please cancel slashdot subscription zonk is nut

[__aaclcg7560]

Simple... just throw yourself off of a building to cancel your Slashdot account. If you don't go splat, you didn't try hard enough. :P

Re:OMG that is annoying

[poopdeville]

Cancelling an AOL account is easy in my experience

Just call them, press 0 about a hundred times[1], and tell them you want to cancel your account. If they ask why you want to cancel your account, just be honest. If that's not good enough, start swearing. (I'm fucking tired of your assholes charging me twice what the local ISP charges...)

[1] The old business man trick. If you do it, you'll get better treatment from just about anyone.

Re:Consumer Reports

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Well, it'd be pretty weird if Consumer Reports was a pain in the ass company.

Re:please cancel slashdot subscription zonk is nut

[Alioth]

On a point of pedantry, you won't go 'splat'. Skydivers call dying "bouncing" for a reason.

Splat vs Bounce

[PopeRatzo]

It would depend upon the distance from which you are being observed as you hit the ground, and perhaps your level of obesity.

I imagine that a sufficiently fat person, if one were to observe from say, 3 feet, would make a quite satisfying "splat" as he hit the ground.

But no question that a surprising amount of bounce would be involved, too. And a great deal of thud.

Your credit card was not pwned by AOL

[Bastardchyld]

I had to report a credit card stolen when AOL reactivated a canceled account without my consent.

AOL did not reactivate your account, in your cardmember agreement it tells you that if upon closing if recurring charges still come in that the credit card company has the right to reactivate your account. And by just reporting your card stolen via the credit card you are still leaving AOL with authorization to maintain an account in your name, which means that when they do not collect money from you they can send it to collections.

Why not just cancel AOL, or of course the super-dooper-easy method get your spouse to do it.

Re:Irritating as hell

[ScrewMaster]

Memes can be erased. It just takes some time in a sanitarium under the care of an ex-CIA brainwashing technician and copious quantities of appropriate hypnotics.