Louie: young guy, possibly a bit green, but smart as paint. - Greg Charles
Folks, if you are determined to have a profanity-laden debate about whose tech guys are superior, feel free to do so.
In the Pit. Not here. Please return this thread to it’s topic or a reasonable hijack thereof.
Oh, and please stop stealing bandwidth from other UBB boards to power your smilies.
Thank you.
Change Your Password, Please and don’t use HTML, as it has been disabled, but you can learn about superscripts here
Would a “reasonable hijack thereof” be taken to mean substituting the word “Juno” for “AOL” in the topic line, as in “Why does Juno hate me?”
I’m relieved to see a couple of other people mention that maybe Juno has a few problems, just perhaps. It was awfully nice of them to finally give us free Internet (which is why I’m here on this message board in the first place), but not until it looked like people might start getting it from Wal-Mart or K-mart, but I have to say, it lacks a certain something…
The main thing is that every so often it seems to forget how to reload its permanent banner ad. This means that the banner ad gets a weird error message in it, which isn’t that big a deal, we just ignore it the same way we ignore the ad, but it also means that it brings up a full-size box in the middle of the screen saying, “Cannot find server” with a lot of other stuff on it. This drove us crazy for weeks, thinking that it meant we were disconnected from the Internet, until we figured out that all you have to do is close the box (click on the X) and it goes away. But, once it gets into one of “those” moods, it will keep bringing up “Cannot find server” boxes every 30 seconds or so, as long as you are doing the web. I went upstairs to the bathroom once, and when I came back down, there were at least 30 “cannot find server” boxes, all neatly tiled, waiting for me.
And (now I’m NOT complaining), every so often, for reasons which remain mysterious, it locks up (which of course is nothing new), but when it comes back, the banner ad is BEHIND the internet main box, so you can expand the main box totally. Weird, but like I said, I’m not complaining. We just wish we knew how to make it do that on purpose.
Also, for reasons which remain mysterious, we frequently get the red X error message that says we’ve been disconnected from the Internet–except that we haven’t. It’s still there.
All very strange, but since it’s free, I’m not complaining too loudly.
Yep, I always put @aol.com after the name. I also double check spelling, and if it comes back as “unknown” I retype the address just in case there is an extra space or something that I can’t see.
All in all, I just can’t see what I could be doing wrong. This happens so randomly that I can’t see it as my ISP being blocked or anthing like that.
I guess this is just something I’ll have to live with.
BTW, does anybody have some contact info for AOL? I’d like to give them a piece of my mind & let them know they’ve lost my business when I move back to the States.
Tatertot, I had that happen one time sending mail from my yahoo account to my sister on aol. It was about the same time that yahoo had those big problems so I disregarded it. Now I feel like sending something just to see what happens. 
I don’t usually use yahoo for outgoing mail.
Thank god I am wearing my hip waders this morning. I’m truly amused that the person with the greatest vitriol towards America Online is an employee of the LOSING SIDE in the biggest Anti-Trust suit brought by the US Gov’t in decades. You have the temerity to whine about AOL’s dominance in the area of online service? I’m absolutely amused.
Drawing a paycheck from Big Brother puts you in a perilous position when you start throwing stones at Big Cousin.
Cartooniversetatertot >>
AOL’s technical support telephone numbers are:
1-800-827-3338 (within the U.S.)
1-703-264-1184 (outside the U.S.)
AOL’s sales & billing telephone number is:
1-800-827-6364
If you are outside the U.S. and you need to reach billing, call the 703 number, and the technician can transfer the call to the 800 number.
Since it is more of a technical question, the technical support line would be the way to go. However since you are not an AOL member, you will most likely be referred to your ISP.
My yahoo mail got through.
Shagrath…
I think you may have a little misplaced anger there, dood.
Lemme explain a bit about AOL’s phone techs:
  °   They are not terribly computer literate. That’s just not part of the job description. AOL hires “warm bodies” to handle the call-volume. Technical knowledge doesn’t matter.
I’ve had to teach a few phone techs how to sign on to the AOL client–and these are techs that had already been working for days or weeks, in some cases.
  °   Most of the techies are college students who need to earn some money. Many of the rest are working moms, finacially strapped divorced people, and older people who are “too old to hire” by other companies.
  °   They’re working in hellish conditions, just to pay the rent and buy groceries. And damn few are MSanything certified.
  °   They are ruled by the almighty Call Time. If they stay on the phone with a customer for more than 7 1/2 minutes, they run the risk of getting fired.
They use a telephony system called ASPECT–it monitors every second that the tech works. Each second is put into a category like READY, IDLE, or ACTIVE.
There are about a dozen of these categories, collectively called Stats. If any of these stats are outside of the standards, the tech can be fired.
The problem stat is for Call Time, which is Total Signed-On Time divided by Total Number of Calls.
If the tech’s Call Time is over 7 1/2 minutes, or if it is under 6 minutes, the tech’s job is in jeopardy.
They come to work every day, wondering if they’ll still have a job when their shift’s over. Every week or so, a steady stream of former-techs are escorted to the door.
  °   Earning a measly $7.50 an hour, just to spend all day fretting over stats and being cursed out on the phones, does not make techs that really give much of a damn whether you can sign onto AOL or not.
“Just get off the phone so I can keep my job for another day” is a common mode of thinking.
  °   Now for the nitty-gritty.
Sherlock.
:: shudder ::
The idea at AOL is that you don’t need techs that know anything. In theory, if they can pull Joe Blow off the street, put him in front of a computer program that will tell him how to fix the problem, then all will be just dandy.
Plus, ole Joe won’t need to be paid as much as someone who actually know what they’re doing.
Enter Sherlock.
Sherlock is the computer program which is linked to a database. The phone tech will read the scripts from their computer screen, and the customer will answer the questions posed by Sherlock.
After about a dozen questions (some of which have no bearing on the problem at hand,) a list of trouble-shooting steps will be displayed.
If the problem ain’t on the list, or if none of the resolutions work, then it ain’t AOL’s problem…send 'em to MicroSoft or a local computer tech.
I can almost guarantee you that 99% of the people who were “transferred” to MS were referred to you because that’s what it said to do in Sherlock.
Before Sherlock there was another program called Swift Response. Same can o’ worms…different interface.
So, as you can see, none of these things are the direct fault of the AOL Techs.
They’re just trying to do their job without getting fired. And trying to actually fix a problem can get you fired there.
There are severe problems–I’ll never dispute that!
But lay the blame where blame is earned…with AOL’s upper management.
-David
Thank you soulfrost, i did learn a few things from that. I’m very familiar with aspect and stats, etc as i’ve done phone support for several different companies in my day, but i didn’t know about that sherlock thing. It doesn’t surprise me one bit though they way they treat thier techs. I’ve been in situations before where they just want warm bodies, and it sucks. But, this is an example of yet one more way that aol sucks, not only do they screw thier customers over, but they screw thier employees as well. It saddens me greatly to think of people worrying about thier job day to day, trying to make ends meet. BUT… that is just one more reason why the monster must be stopped. Aol must be destoyed, and if i could think of a way to do it personally, i would. I realize people would lose jobs, but hey, they can find better jobs and not get taken advantage of by a criminal corporation. Like a bandaid, rip it off quickly, it’ll hurt for a moment but youre better in the long run. 
I shouldn’t let it possess my thoughts so much, but i find myself thinking of this too often. They must be stopped, and i think an antitrust suit is in order. And think of all they own! Aol (of course), Time/Warner (and all of the stuff they used to own), Mirabillis (icq), and mapquest.com to name a few. I have since boycotted most of these products/services, and would encourage you all to do the same. The stupidity that surrounds aol, and it’s users, is a harbinger to the fall of mankind. We are slowly but surely getting dumber and lazier folks. It’s rare to find anyone with anymore common sense now days. I’m not saying aol is the is the cause of all stupidity, i just am saying it contributes to it more than anything i can think of. And maybe that’s what this is really all about, i hate people that are too lazy/stupid to do anything or learn anything. So i feel sorry for the aol techs, the same way i would feel sorry for a battered woman. Yes, it’s sad and unfortunate, and i really do feel for you, but if you do not remove yourself from the situation, then you are equally to blame. Fair enough?
“Common sense is what gores you in the ass in Pamplona, Spain when you run in front of a bunch of bulls down a street narrower that Newt Gengrich’s mind…” - Dennis Miller
“Oh dreadful angel of mine, enrich me with the vastness of your being…”
Fair enough!
There are several lawsuits being processed right now–everything from anti-trust to class-actions for when AOL5.0 was trashing peoples computers to DOL investigations.
Check out Observers for updates.
On a personal note, I felt that AOL lied too much to me, to the phone techs, and to their customers, so I quit one day last November.
You’re right–it hurt for a minute (I REALLY miss CRIS access!) but now I’ve found a job that is sooooo much better!
David
Dont you miss the stock options just a little? And don’t tell me they don’t add up heck I know of several guys that paid cash for $60,000 cars after working a couple years.
Be prepared. Keep kitty litter in the trunk.
Not a stock option to be seen out in this neck of the woods, Lucy.
Had there been, I would have cashed 'em in and bailed out much sooner than I did.
David
SoulFrost brings up a great number of valid points about people who work tech support. The sad thing is that it doesn’t apply just to AOL (well, AOL isn’t an ISP, but that’s another story…), but to most other large ISPs as well. I worked tech support for a major regional ISP (I’m not allowed to say which, but I can say it was a branch of one of the baby BELL companies, in the SOUTH United States, which set up their own DOT NET division). When I started, there was extensive training, not many techs, but calls were processes fast, not many complaints. In the course of about 9 months, training was cut to three days, starting pay was decreased, everything was scripted (badly), and older techs (because of their rate of pay being grandfathered in, higher than a new salary cap) were hounded until they quit or an excuse could be found to fire them. As you point out, CALL TIME became God.
sigh
Anyway, to (finally) get to the point, I spoke with many a customer who had mail bounced from AOL. It was intermittent: sometimes worked, sometimes not. My personal theory is that the AOL servers simply couldn’t handle the mail volume. Spam filters were also an issue, I’m sure.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Manhattan,
What do you mean by that - how do smilies (cute, harmless-looking creatures) hurt other UBB boards?
Sorry for posting a cross-topic newbie question.
No problem. This is important enough that we can stand a small digression. I’d direct you to the following threads:
Posting of graphics on the SDMB
Uh, Tuba, About bandwidth stealing… (in which your humble correspondent learns the answer to exactly the question you ask)
I think the smiley face box is after me!! Help!!
If you have any questions after you review the threads, drop me an email and I’ll be happy to help out. Thanks for asking.
NYC IRL III
is on April 15th. Do you have what it takes?
[Note: This message has been edited by manhattan]
I’ve been told that AOL and some others block messages from some senders.
? Anyone else hear about this practice?
Tell your friends to use libertybay.com, they are only $8.95 a month.
lindsay
Yup, Lindsay, it happens.
Mostly, they block domains, though, since it’s really hard to tell who’s really who in cyberspace.
However…
Mr. David Cassell of AOLWatch.Org mailed out a long-awaited newsletter about a year ago. AOL blocked most of their customers from receiving it.
Smartass that I am, I forwarded it to several AOLers who’d asked for it. Yeah–I’ll show 'em!
Earlier, I stated that mail to AOL sometimes takes 26 days to arrive. Many thought that I was joking.
Twenty-six days after sending the mail, it FINALLY arrived in the AOLers’ inboxes…in fact, for several weeks thereafter, everything I sent to AOL was delayed by almost a month.
“Hmmmmm,” said I. “This smells fishy!”
So I tried from different ISPs…with the same results. Friends of mine tried from their ISPs…with the same results.
When we forwarded Mr. Cassell’s newsletter from an ISP, that mail, and all subsequent mail, was delayed.
When we attached it as a file with some cute, made-up name, there was no problem.
So we decided that AOL’s mail-spinners were treating us as spammers, but based on the content of our mailings instead of the number of people to which we sent that mail.
Why it arrived after 3 or 4 weeks instead of just being killed outright, though, is beyond me.
-David
Thanks, Manhattan. Very informative. I own my boss about an hour and a half now, but I sure understand how smileys can lead to the end of civilization as we know it!