wWw.::HOW TO CANCEL AOL IN 21 MINUTES ( : Vincent Ferrari video WNBC Today News CNBC America Online .cOm

A new documented record was seen on NBC Today News, when Vincent Ferrari called AOL (America On Line) on the 13th June 2006, to cancel his AOL account in a documented record time of 21 minutes.

CNBC Reporters attempted to beat Vincent Ferrari's record time of cancelling an AOL account. In the attempt to cancel they were hung up on immediately, and it ultimately took more than 45 minutes to cancel the account.

AOL is an American global Internet service and media company based in Richmond, Virginia.

AOL once had more than 30 million subscribers, and decreased to 13 million subscribers in December 2006.

AOL was one of the worst voted internet suppliers in a poll by BBC Watchdog in 1997.

AOL began as QCS ~ Quantum Computer Services, with it's sole product being an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console, where subscribers bought a modem from the company and paid a fee, allowing them to download games. The company almost went bankrupt in 1983. QCS changed the company's strategy in 1985, launching Q-Link ~ Quantum Link, a mega-BBS for Commodore 64 and 128 computers. Quantum and Apple launched AppleLink in 1988, for Apple II and Macintosh computers. The two companies parted ways in October 1989. Quantum changed the services part of the company name to America Online in 1988, with the launch of PC Link, a service for IBM-compatible PCs in partnership with the Tandy Corporation.

AOL introduced many online interactive titles and games for the original PlayNet software system, including: Graphical chat environments Habitat in 1986.. Club Caribe in 1988.. QuantumLink Serial by Tracy Reed in 1988.. Quantum Space in 1989.. Dungeons & Dragons title Neverwinter Nights in 1991.. MMORPG in 1991.. Black Bayou in1996.. & AOL for Dos in 1991.

AOL ACCOUNT CANCELLATiONS

AOL’s customer service policies were the subject of an inquiry by the New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office, in response to consumer complaints. The investigation revealed that AOL had a scheme for rewarding employees who retained subscribers who called to cancel their Internet services. Customers continued to complain that AOL staff ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing. In 2005 AOL agreed to pay $1.25 million to the state of New York and reformed its customer service procedures, but many AOL users outside New York still claim to have problems cancelling their accounts.

Vincent Ferrari documented his account cancellation phone call on the 13th June 2006, claiming he had switched to broadband years earlier. In the recorded phone call, the AOL representative refused to cancel the account unless Vincent Ferrari explained why AOL hours were still being recorded on it. Ferrari insisted that AOL software was not even installed on the computer. When Ferrari demanded that the account be cancelled regardless, the AOL representative asked to speak with 30 year old Vincent Ferrari's father, for whom the account had been set up. The conversation was aired on CNBC. When CNBC reporters tried to have an account on AOL cancelled, they were hung up on immediately and it ultimately took more than 45 minutes to cancel the account. AOL eventually fired the representative who had spoken to Ferrari and issued an apology.

On the 19th July 2006, the entire AOL Retention Manual was released on the Internet.. On the 3rd August 2006, Time Warner announced the dissolving of AOL's retention centres, estimating it would lose more than six million subscribers.

After the demise of the AOL retention centres, free account members trying to cancel their accounts, via AOL Keyword "cancel", were being redirected to a website allowing them to choose from three different paid membership plans, which made it very difficult to cancel their accounts.

AOL had a class action lawsuit law suite filed against them in 1999, citing violations of U.S. labour laws in its usage of CL's ~ Community Leaders, used to monitor chatrooms and message boards. AOL then began drastically reducing the work of its volunteers in 2000, ending the program in 2005.

AOL faced many lawsuits over claims that it was too slow to stop billing people after their accounts had been cancelled.

AOL had to change its method of calculating used minutes in response to a class action lawsuit, when they would add 15 seconds to the user time and round up to the next whole minute, which AOL claimed was to account for sign on and sign off times, but as this practice was not made known to customers, the plaintiffs won.

AOL was served with an $8 billion lawsuit in 2000, alleging that AOL 5.0 software caused significant difficulties for users attempting to use 3rd party Internet service providers. The lawsuit sought damages of up to $1000 for each user that had downloaded the software, at the time of the lawsuit. AOL agreed to a settlement of $15 million. Today the AOL's software has a feature called AOL Dialer, which allows users to connect to the ISP without running the full interface, especially if the user doesn't favour the AOL Browser.

AOL released a compressed text file on one of its websites containing 20 million search keywords for over 650,000 users from March to May 2006, intended for research purposes. AOL pulled the file from public access by in August 2006, after its wide distribution on the Internet by others.

AOL Company purchases from 1994 have included: Redgate Communications.. BookLink.. NaviSoft & NaviServer.. Medior.. Ubique.. Johnson-Grace.. GNN Global Network Navigator.. I.N.N ~ ImagiNation Network.. PLS.. CompuServe.. Mirabilis.. Nullsoft.. Netscape.. NewMedicalHelpOnline ..Spinner.com.. Moviefone.. Tegic.. Mapquest.. Quack.com.. eVoice.. InfoInterActive.. DeadAIM.. Advertising.com.. MailBlocks.. Xdrive.. Wildseed.. Weblogs, Inc.. MusicNow.. Truveo, Inc.. Lightningcast, Inc.. Userplane.. GameDaily.. Relegence.. ADTECH.. and TradeDoubler.

AOL owned sites & services include: AOL Music Canada.. AOL Games.. AOL Autos.. AOL Jobs.. AOL Personals.. AOL Real Estate.. AOL Body.. AOL Coaches.. AOL @ School.. AOL Shopping.. AOL Travel.. AOL UK TV Guide.. AOL UK Money.. KOL - Just for Kids.. RED - Online Teen Community & Entertainment.. GameVault.. AOL Members Customer Support site.. AOL Developer Network.. and Free AOL Downloads.