AOL Reviews 

Disappointing Customer Service and Unacceptable Sales Tactics

After eight years of using AOL email, AOL suddenly signed my elderly mother out of her account. She is not comfortable with change, which is exactly why she has continued using AOL for so many years.

When I tried to reconnect her account, AOL accepted my password and sent me a verification code. Even after I entered the correct code, the system repeatedly redirected me back to the reconnect page. After three unsuccessful attempts, I finally called AOL customer service.

Rather than making a genuine effort to resolve the problem, the representative seemed more interested in selling me a $15-per-month service plan than helping me regain access to an email account that should have worked in the first place. I declined the offer.

Interestingly, the next time I went through the reconnect process, it worked without a problem.

I cannot say for certain whether this was intentional, but the experience left me questioning whether AOL makes account recovery unnecessarily difficult to encourage customers to purchase its paid support services. That is a troubling impression for a company that has served its customers for decades.

A company should not make customers feel that they have to pay extra just to get its basic service working. AOL needs to improve its account recovery process and train its customer service representatives to prioritize solving problems rather than pushing paid service plans—especially when dealing with elderly customers who rely on familiar technology.

This experience has seriously damaged my confidence in AOL's customer service.

Norton advised my password was leaked. I changed the password. Then I couldn't reaccess my AOL email account right after the password change. I called the customer service number given and spoke to the dimmest nitwit ever, who insisted my inability to access my email account had nothing to do with the password change. After telling me I needed the paid service because it would take us both too much time to go through the free help, I insisted he try to help me. He was a buffoon... couldn't recall what he had just asked me to do (this happened several times). He kept trying to tell me I had to pay for his help. I wouldn't have paid him to clean my toilet after fifteen constipated elephants used my bathroom, much less pay him to help me. Major yuck. Worst email service ever. TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I have been with AOL mail for years, I am now looking at shutting it down.
The pornagrapic spam mail just doesn't stop, every single day it comes in.
I block senders every single time but they just keep on coming.
I just don't want that rubbish in my mail box.

On with AOL service agent for 2 hours
Issue with my attachments sending
Nikki could not fix issue she transferred
Me to a supposely a tech 2 agent Dean to assist he did nothing said it takes 15 minutes for e-mail with a attachment to interface , that was a lie.
I have been using AOL for over 15 years and never had this issue. Guessing hé wasn’t A tech 2 service agent.
Then he didn’t even try and said nothing except they couldn’t do anything after2 hours . Give me a break, AOl needs to higher better service agents to show they care try to help.

AOL.com is the most despicable email server I have ever had. I just endured 39 minutes on the phone just to get back into my account. I am under a lot of stress and I do not have countless hours to put up with this abuse. I was forced to talk to someone with a foreign accent who was slow at picking up on what I was saying and I do not like having to repeat myself. I could barely understand her. She extorted money out of me just to let me back into my account. She said I didn't have any choice. I had to stop her from talking my head off and gave my credit information on my cel which I resent doing.
On logging in and going into settings I found out there was no way to eliminate 2 step verification. Under privacy and security, they do not even show this option! Years ago, my email that should have been secure was loaded up with malware. I did not know why. They also decided that they owned my email so that when I logged in on another computer, all my deleted messages were still cluttering up my inbox and they got me into a terrible mess. They are not to be trusted for any reason whatsoever. I bought an encrypted email from another company. They are far superior to this one. Do not put anything private or valuable on this email because they can't be trusted and they are unpredictable. They infuriate me more than any other email.

I wanted to close my aol email account I have the right address I’ve had this account since 2016. I kept entering the CORRECT email address. Four times their system didn’t recognize my email address. This on you aol there are 7 years of email in their enjoy!

AOL: Avoid Or eLse

Went to update my phone number on my account and got locked out by two factor authentication going to my old number. Called support and was told I needed to subscribe to premium to receive customer support. When I expressed my dismay at this, the agent named "Ace" put me on hold three separate times to "check with the manager". Each time she returned though, she would just repeat "So do you know your account info now?"; it was concerning how she repeated this three times, I legitimately thought she was AI for a moment. Especially after telling her I logged in fine, I just wanted to update my phone number. AOL was the service I used as a kid, but has now absolutely devolved into a scam. I hate AI, but even that would have been more helpful and ironically empathetic than Ace at AOL 24/7 Customer Support was.

I called and tried to recover my account that was hacked in 2017 and they refused to help me

After writing a "nice" letter to AOL in New York City, expressing my shock and distress at having my personal data hijacked (sent certified mail, return receipt requested) someone from AOL's Concierge Executive Escalations responded and I regained access to my 20-year old AOL email account. I also wrote to my Congressman because there doesn't seem to be any government oversight of email providers and they do whatever they do at will with no explanation/justification. The Concierge was very helpful but I shouldn't have had to go through this. I still don't know why I lost access to my email account in the first place.

Rarely have I seen a more unresponsive service like this one. It floods email with advertising, making the journey least to say distracting, the anti-spam engine is ridiculous as you still receive phishing and scam attempts in the mailbox. Spam filters stop operating once you reach 1000 spam addresses added and no one in AOL seems to be giving a damn about it. AOL Mail (in the past Compuserve) has incorporated first email users now in their grey hair, often case uncapable of making the right call and falling prey of scammers/phishers. You should have more attention to your customers.

I joined AOL on day one 1980? -- had to pay for email then
Since it was taken over by Yahoo - IT'S RUBBISH

Too many problems to list - the news has several articles on the same subject with different headings
Half the news items are adverts!

Yahoo BOT is overbearing making nonesensical interventions irritating just about everyone.

I recently had to call customer support because I forgot my password for my email account. My dad made AOL accounts for our family many years ago. My account was tied to a lot of my current day apps. I got a new phone and needed to log in to authenticate signing in to some of those apps. I spoke with Lei, in the Phillipines, and she was absolutely the sweetest and so patient and helpful. She also had a sense of humor and it was nice meeting her over the phone! I hope somehow this gets to her supervisor or something. I wish I had her last name. She helped me get into my account by scanning my ID and I was able to access the apps I needed and didn't lose my pictures and memories. I spoke with her Saturday July 19th. Thank you Lei!

I needed help with logging back in my AOL email & in addition to checking AOL Help & had done much related research endless times since Jan 3/25 without success as per my catch 22 log in & inability to get verification code

I received Absolutely NO RESPONSE FROM AOL SUPPORT since sending them the following email dated Jan 13/25:

"Dear friends at AOL

I am unable to log in my AOL email since Jan 3/25 & i am unable to get verification code from my supposed verification Yahoo account which is also asking me to verify by logging into this AOL email

As a result, I am totally stuck as I simply cannot do any verification unless I can at least log into either of these Yahoo or AOL account as they have each other as the only verification email

PLEASE HELP

I can recall most info of my AOL email account that I have been using sine 2015 just to prove that I have been using this yahoo email for 15 years

Thank you"

In addition, when I finally found a number to call, AOL AI like agent really sucks. I have answered all of her repeating account questions correct now I regained access & am able logging in via true help from Yahoo. THIS AOL AI CAUSED ME OVER 1 HOUR WITH NO RESULT OTHER THAN MUCH FRUSTRATION & TOTALLY SUBSTANDARD CUSTOMER SERVICE. THIS AOL NON-HUMAN AI WAS ABSOLUTELY UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND OR HELP BUT KEPT REPEATING & DEMANDING ANSWERS

I have had an AOL email for over twenty years, but have haven’t been able to access the account due to the fact I hav changed phone numbers & cannot remember the password to save my life! They offer no support to customers that do not pay for premium plans! I find this to be absolutely ridiculous considering the fact that when my account was initially opened “premium” plans either did not exist or they were not offered! So now despite the fact that I have attempted to use their AI generated live chat & call them I am informed that no one can assist me! This is extremely asinine & is what I feel a significant reason in why they are all but non-existent & are not even considered when choosing an email domain for most people! I utilized this email for a number of years & was my very first email when I first started adulting, but loyalty like that apparently means absolutely nothing to this company!

Bought a Swan CCTV system. It was faulty and AOL replaced it straight away. Sadly the replacement was also faulty so I asked for my money back. No chance. Mya was not doing that. Talked over me and said that they would keep some of my money until my appliance had been returned to SWAN for them to look at it. I had already sent AOL a video with audio of the fan screaming and Mya had listened to it. I told Mya that I would claim my money back through my credit card if she wouldn't give me my money back. Whilst still talking over me constantly she told me that she was trying to help which she absolutely wasn't. I eventually put the phone down and have claimed my money back through my Credit Card. Anyone want a faulty CCTV system?

Still no resolution from AOL. Avoid at all cost !

This is literally the worst email provider ever, absolutely zero spam filter, I get 30 spam a day, I block everything and get same companies all the time, they sell your information and take financial reward to send out spam emails, there a joke and need closing down

Aol mail as changed unfortunately and not for the better. All feedback and reviews go ignored as everyone hates it!! And the annoying little pop up ad on every inbox.

Bring back Aol classic before you loose everyone!!!
Why ruin a good thing?
Take notice of your customers, Not the idiot who is short of work in the aol dept, and looking to fix things that are not broken .

My email has been changed to a new version without my knowledge. The new version is rubbish and you can’t change it back to the old version! Hundreds if not thousands of complaints online about the same issue which AOL are ignoring. Can’t phone them as that is no longer an option and can’t raise a complaint online either. They need to be dealt with by the regulating authorities. I will be reporting them as well as changing my email provider and internet provider Talk Talk who took them over.

Great mail system. The problem is using your number for advertising