The answer is always (c)

...I (C) what you did there, subby

+1 internets to you

Verizon does this, with one added step.

All over my area, Verizon's laying f*cktons of fiber. There are also reports that they're going back in and tearing out some of their copper infrastructure. Why? Because their copper line is regulated at both the state and federal levels; there are laws in place that require the owner of the infrastructure to lease usage to competitors, especially protective of local ISPs and telcom co-ops. The fiber, however, is not. So Verizon simultaneously screws their competition that's leasing their infrastructure and their DSL subscriber base, while apologizing profusely for the "temporary problems" and pushing their FIOS service hard and fast.

Personally, I have to go with (A). Why the hell are they even still in business?

Bucky Katt: I have to go with (A). Why the hell are they even still in business?

Old people and people who are too dumb to change providers.

eddyatwork: Old people and people who are too dumb to change providers.

The local TV stations here show commercials for dating services that only use phone numbers and not websites because, as the announcer says, "computers are too hard to use."

Yeah, really want to meet someone via their service who agrees with that sentiment.

Sounds like it would be a great premise for a psychological horror movie.


Drag Me to AOHELL

Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Good headline subby. +1

Just for grins, I decided to check if my old Compuserve account still exists- it does, just bought by AOL. For some reason, though, I can log in but the mailbox won't load. Ideas?

If the collection calls are coming from an overseas call center, they're not going to report it to the credit bureaus.

www.cbcreditrepair.com

Sword and Shield: Just for grins, I decided to check if my old Compuserve account still exists- it does, just bought by AOL. For some reason, though, I can log in but the mailbox won't load. Ideas?

CompuServe was shut down five days ago.

Sword and Shield: Just for grins, I decided to check if my old Compuserve account still exists- it does, just bought by AOL. For some reason, though, I can log in but the mailbox won't load. Ideas?

Reboot the router

One of the best Fark headlines evar, Subby!

+1 Internets

Lost Thought 00: Sword and Shield: Just for grins, I decided to check if my old Compuserve account still exists- it does, just bought by AOL. For some reason, though, I can log in but the mailbox won't load. Ideas?

Reboot the router

Or as good old Packard Bell tech support used to say: "Get out your restore disk(s), reformat your hard drive and restore to factory specs."

LeroyB: Sword and Shield: Just for grins, I decided to check if my old Compuserve account still exists- it does, just bought by AOL. For some reason, though, I can log in but the mailbox won't load. Ideas?

CompuServe was shut down five days ago.

True, but now it's an AOL account. They still exist.

Hmmm.

A headline with choices? And there's no wrong answer?

Subby, you probably just started something. +1

/I picked C

+1

The only improvement I can suggest:

AOL accused of secretly upgrading old customers and threatening them with mystery bills. Choose your headline ending: (C) In other news, AOL is still around; (C) No, this is not a repeat from 1995; or (C) You've got blackmail

Sgt. Pepper, that's pretty much what I thought of.

headline of the month.

/hilarious

I choose A

berniex

www.cbcreditrepair.com

Let me guess, you bombard the credit reporting agencies with trade line disputes in hope that the creditor doesn't respond within 30 days; therefore, the disputed trade line is now ghosted and will no longer show up, even if it continues to be reported.

/how about telling your clients to pay their damn bills on time

Disappointing article. Would have liked to hear some BS explanation from an AOL rep as to what was going on.

/once all the old people die in 10 years, AOL is finished

Electrify:
/once all the old people die in 10 years, AOL is finished

My 50 year old mother still uses AOL. She was sitting in a relative's house (no wireless), using her laptop, no ethernet cord or anything. She pulled up AOL, typed in her username and password, and attempted to connect. She said "I don't think it's going to let me because Windows can't find anything" (referring to the x'd out connection icons on the tray), and proceeded to wait for AOL to connect her to the internet.

Now, we don't actually have an AOL account, I think they got rid of it six or seven years ago when DSL showed up. But she still uses AOL as her browser and email client, despite the huge memory suck and automatically appended advertisements in emails.

We've been using the internet in this house since maybe 1993 or 1994.

So no, I don't think AOL is going to go away completely in 10 years. There is still plenty of stupid to go around.

lincoln65: Electrify:
/once all the old people die in 10 years, AOL is finished

My 50 year old mother still uses AOL. She was sitting in a relative's house (no wireless), using her laptop, no ethernet cord or anything. She pulled up AOL, typed in her username and password, and attempted to connect. She said "I don't think it's going to let me because Windows can't find anything" (referring to the x'd out connection icons on the tray), and proceeded to wait for AOL to connect her to the internet.

Now, we don't actually have an AOL account, I think they got rid of it six or seven years ago when DSL showed up. But she still uses AOL as her browser and email client, despite the huge memory suck and automatically appended advertisements in emails.

We've been using the internet in this house since maybe 1993 or 1994.

So no, I don't think AOL is going to go away completely in 10 years. There is still plenty of stupid to go around.

Have you done anything to make the transition possible? Did you setup her AOL mail account to be accessed on Thunderbird, rename Firefox's icon as "Internet" or even "AOL" and import her old bookmarks? Add her AOL account to meebo or Pigin with auto login at Windows startup?

I don't blame people for sticking with AOL when they aren't exposed to anything else.

I had to deal with HP a few weeks ago on a dead PC at work and the experience I had wasn't too much smoother than that. Let's see...no lights, no whirl of a fan, nothing. "Try another power supply" then other memory, CPU, HD and motherboard. Dude...it has a next day onsite warranty, how about honoring it? After dicking around with Apu for an hour I typed "eat a bag of curried dicks" into the chat window and called it a day.

/fark India

Came for the Choose Your Own Adventure, can't decide whether to follow my first option or cheat to the end of the book.

jankyboy:
Let me guess, you bombard the credit reporting agencies with trade line disputes in hope that the creditor doesn't respond within 30 days; therefore, the disputed trade line is now ghosted and will no longer show up, even if it continues to be reported.

/how about telling your clients to pay their damn bills on time

Actually, no. The "bombard" technique hasn't worked for 15 years, and if you try it, you can pretty much ruin any chance you have of removing an item.

There's 26 different ways to remove an item through the bureaus, and about 4 or 5 directly through the creditor or collection agency.

Depending on what the item is, how old it is, what the current status is, who is reporting the item; will determine the method(s) I use.

But I don't give unrealistic expectations to my clients, there are some items that just won't come off any time soon.

And yes, "pay your bills on time" is item number one on my FAQ page.

AOL actually bounced an old checking account of mine, back in the 90's. Honestly, I just figured that the account had been closed due to inactivity, and yes, I should have actively looked into it. Still, imagine my $#@!!# surprise when some other bank in another state wouldn't open an account due to something they saw on CheckSystems, or whatever agency they use to flag deadbeat checking accounts. Ah, AOL. And fark you, too Hibernia (the bank) for paying the charge despite the zero balance and the fact that AOL was your number one complaint of bounced accounts.

Look, it was the 90's. And it was one of those insane programs like "95,763 free hours plus a blow job." Well, when the trial was up I could swear that I had canceled following a 30 minute phone call that resembled primitive dentistry.

Guess not.

castufari: I had to deal with HP a few weeks ago on a dead PC at work and the experience I had wasn't too much smoother than that. Let's see...no lights, no whirl of a fan, nothing. "Try another power supply" then other memory, CPU, HD and motherboard. Dude...it has a next day onsite warranty, how about honoring it? After dicking around with Apu for an hour I typed "eat a bag of curried dicks" into the chat window and called it a day.

/fark India


Clearly, it's his fault that he's Indian and was offered a job.

castufari: I had to deal with HP a few weeks ago on a dead PC at work and the experience I had wasn't too much smoother than that. Let's see...no lights, no whirl of a fan, nothing. "Try another power supply" then other memory, CPU, HD and motherboard. Dude...it has a next day onsite warranty, how about honoring it? After dicking around with Apu for an hour I typed "eat a bag of curried dicks" into the chat window and called it a day.

/fark India


I asked one of these assholes if he believed in reincarnation, as Hindus do - he said yes. I said, "I hope you die and come back as one of your customers."

Apik0r0s: I asked one of these assholes if he believed in reincarnation, as Hindus do - he said yes. I said, "I hope you die and come back as one of your customers."

I lol'd

castufari: I had to deal with HP a few weeks ago on a dead PC at work and the experience I had wasn't too much smoother than that. Let's see...no lights, no whirl of a fan, nothing. "Try another power supply" then other memory, CPU, HD and motherboard. Dude...it has a next day onsite warranty, how about honoring it? After dicking around with Apu for an hour I typed "eat a bag of curried dicks" into the chat window and called it a day.

/fark India

I'm sure it made you feel better, but you have to understand that even if the server farm that hosts its program is in India, the chatbot you were typing at wouldn't get the reference and wouldn't feel bad even if it did.

eddyatwork: Bucky Katt: I have to go with (A). Why the hell are they even still in business?

Old people and people who are too dumb to change providers.
There's a third group who maintain their AOL accounts for the sake of nostalgia. One of my friends has one of the first 100 AOL accounts (co-owned some small tech mag that AOL's owners bought when they were first starting up) and keeps it because, despite being AOL, that is kind of cool.

berniex: If the collection calls are coming from an overseas call center, they're not going to report it to the credit bureaus.

www.cbcreditrepair.com

In that case, the correct answer is "STFU, Hadji!"

AOL = The CIA's concept of the Internet (not joking, research the AOL headquarters location and who founded the scam).

Sad really that they were not all imprisoned for grand fraud decades ago.

A reply on The Consumerist I think might explain this:

"Did she recently stop working for Time Warner? She never explicitly said she canceled (which I wouldn't either with a free account), so if she stopped working for TWC or they dropped this benefit, that could explain the charges. It does not explain the phantom credit card, however."

I think when people left Time Warner (or TW stopped the "benefit"), it triggered some things that probably should not have happened, namely the people "signed up" were automatically "converted" over to being charged for the service. That is my guess on the mess.

castufari: I had to deal with HP a few weeks ago on a dead PC at work and the experience I had wasn't too much smoother than that. Let's see...no lights, no whirl of a fan, nothing. "Try another power supply" then other memory, CPU, HD and motherboard. Dude...it has a next day onsite warranty, how about honoring it? After dicking around with Apu for an hour I typed "eat a bag of curried dicks" into the chat window and called it a day.

/fark India

Nothing to do with India. I've dealt with Lenovo's call centre in India, Microsoft's business support in India and Apple (who I think were in India). All of them were fine.

It's buying cheap-ass products that does it. Don't, and you'll get better service.

I gotta get in on this business model: choose people's names at random, bill them for some service requiring them to jump through hoops to get it canceled, sell debt to collection agency for pennies on the dollar... profit!

That's fraud or extorsion, not blackmail.

Blackmail is when they send you a letter offering you a mortgage with no money down and no proof of income.