I have two questions. First, who still uses dial up for internet access, and second, who knew AOL still existed?

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Let's meet 83 year old Ron Dorff. He's one of the roughly two million folks who still uses AOL to access dial-up internet, and he's got the $25,000 bill from AT&T to prove it.

A lot of us started out with America On-Line as our first gateway to the internet. We paid a monthly fee, clicked on, and heard that wonderful fax machine sound that meant we were connected to a whole new Al Gore invented world.

Usually, all we had to pay was the monthly fee. That's all Ron was paying, until he got a bill from AT&T last march for $8500. He called customer service, they said they would straighten everything out.

The next month, Ron received a bill for $15,000. This bill had a note that said if he didn't pay up, he'd be charged a total of $24,000 in fees and service charges.

Turns out, Ron was dialing into the wrong server which was charging him long distance rates and who knows what else.

Yet in the true spirit of customer service, it wasn't until Ron called the media, and the media called AT&T, that action was taken and Ron was relieved of his charges.

This is why I keep a close eye on my parents and their computer habits. They treat the computer like it's an atomic bomb.They go on once a week to check e-mail.  They never open attachements.

But I can see them dialing up the wrong number to get access and being charged huge dollars. And I can see them paying up, because AT&T doesn't make mistakes. They have stock in that company for goodness sakes.

Gotta keep an eye on the elderly and their computers, or there goes your inheritance.

 

 

 

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