Jeez, AT&T. Billing a pensioner $24,000 for dialup is pretty low An 83-year-old man in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles saw the bill for using his AOL dial-up service rise from a regular $51 per month to an unbelievable $8,596, eventually rising to $24,289, with threats of further increases if he failed to pay up. As a pensioner on Social Security, Ron Dorff receives a monthly income of just $1, …
'it still retains a large customer base of more than 2.2m users.' I'd be more inclined to say that's more like the number of people who still with an AOhelL CD!! they made great tea coasters
I'm surprised AOhelL are still in business after the grief and poor service they provided for years. And still are it seems.
Back in the days of dialup there certainly were virus's that called 900 numbers. Sometime around 2002 I found one on my sister's laptop. I solved the problem by wiping Windows off of her laptop and replacing it with Linux. It's entirely possible that there are still some of those viruses out there. There is another possibility which is that AOL eliminated his local number and their software automatically picked a long distance number. That wouldn't be a problem for anyone with a modern phone plan because the phone companies don't charge for long distance anymore on their phone/Internet/TV bundles. But anyone with AOL is unlikely to have a modern phone plan, they would still have a 1990s or earlier plan where you don't have long distance included and what's even worse the definition of long distance is anything outside of yoru town.
1) AOL Software is terrible, always has been, always will be
B) Its used by people who think that because it has "On Line" in it's title it MUST be the only way to get on the internet
D) things don't "just change", the dial up number has obviously been changed by the user, or by malicious software *think back to early p0rn dialers that would install themselves back in the days of 56k modems"
5) For a dialer to be installed, you have to have been on some very dodgey sites or clicked on some very dodgey link on a webpage or email.
My analysis is this - he genuinely ran up that amount of bill because he had been browsing pr0n and not realized that the dialer had installed - he is now pleading innocence and using his age and senior citizen status to play the victim.
This is AOL's software doing the dialing... I wouldn't rule out random change. And it was dialing into an AOL number, just one that was long distance, so that rules out a porn dialer. A simple case of bit-rot where in the AOL crapware decided that his location had changed to Saskatchewan and changed his diaul-up number accordingly seems most likely.
Poor soul is being robbed. $50 per month?? $600 per anum?!?!! For *DIALUP*?!?!??!?!!!!!!OMG!!!one
All local calls in LA are FREE
Proper (megabit) internet in LA is ~$15-20 per month
...and AOL is exploiting its poor victims to the tune of $50 every month? THAT is DISGUSTING.
There are at least THREE long established sources of FREE dialup in LA. All at least as reliable AND less intrusive than AOL.
If you're out there Mr Dorff (and haven't been frightened off the interwebs by that nasty brain eating corporate dinosaur): YOU CAN GET DIALUP ABSOLUTELY FREE. Remove ALL that apaling AOL crapware from your computer and simply enter a FREE DIALUP number into your operating system's own little dialup program. Your computer will ask you for a username and password the first time you connect and you can enter anything you like for either - they don't care - it's FREE!
Here are a few FREE local access numbers to get you started... use whichever you fancy. They should all be local to you and so completely free to use:
818-574-1010 (VAN NUYS)
818-200-1010 (NORTH HOLLYWOOD)
310-409-1010 (BEVERLY HILLS)
818-806-1010 (BRBN SNVY)
310-923-7010 (W ANGELES)
818-451-1010 (CANOGA PARK)
818-812-1010 (NORTHRIDGE)
http://www.fastfreedialup.com/free_dialup_access_numbers.html
Time for a new slogan AOL? How about this..
AOL :: We're mugging the elderly
OK, good. I hear about everything in California being so much more expensive, glad to hear that there are some options for those of us not pulling down Choco Factory salaries.
That said, Mr. Dorff pro'ly started using SOL back in the day, finds it perfectly fine for what he does (presumably staying connected with kids and grandkids, checking news), and has no reason to consider changing to another service (although this latest incident might have gotten his attention). Horses for courses.
"If you're out there Mr Dorff (and haven't been frightened off the interwebs by that nasty brain eating corporate dinosaur): YOU CAN GET DIALUP ABSOLUTELY FREE. "
If he's a pensioner using AOL dialup to get on the Internet, what do you think the odds are, roughly speaking, that he's a regular in the comments section of The Register?
lol
I know.. but wondered if he might have a look at some of the coverage of his story and find us that way. There might even be a commentard in the valley who knows him but doesn't know about the free dialup?
No harm in trying anyway. ;o)
Mr Ronald Dorff, Woodland Hills, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles 91302 91303 91364 91365 91367 91371 91372 91399 better dialup internet than your AOL/AT&T is available FREE of any charge! (See above)
He probably signed up in the heady days of the late 80's/early 90's as a bit of a pioneer; I dont know if you have noticed, but 99% of ISPs DONT cut existing customers payments when they reduce the tariff for their packages, they wait for the customer to notice, demand the new price be applied to them - and then use that as an excuse to tie the customer in for another 18/24 month contract.
As internet access gets faster and cheaper every year, the older ISPs are sitting on a goldmine of old users paying through the nose for slow, limited services.
Past experience would suggest he was being routed into an overseas switchboard on a premium rate number, and the call forwarded from there to AOL. The owner of the switchboard gets a massive termination fee. Seen it before, both with windows dialers, and also with a home-brew linux box being used as a SIP exchange - and was hijacked running up around £20000 in charges. In the case of the SIP box the calls were routed through an African country - Nigeria I think though memory is vague
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