AOL... Why bother...

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to ask the AIM guys a question. I am trying to simply change the password for my AIM account. While I recognize that this is a free service and AIM can not spend too much money on it. I mean how much money can they possibly make from that occasional ad or two. The least you could do is make the password updating process simple.

I downloaded the latest version of the AIM client and clicked on the change password link. It asked me for my security answer. This was my pets name. I have had this account for over 10 years and it took me many tries to remember what pet's name I used to set up the account. Question.... Why do you have me answer a question after I have already logged into the account? If I know my password, I should just be able to change it without a problem. But no... I am asked for my old password. When I enter my old old password (the same one I used to sign into AIM to begin with) followed by the new password and confirmation, it tells me that my password is not valid.

When I try to reset my password, the system asks me for my birthday. I give it my birthday... I am told I have the wrong birthday. Mommy? When was I born? I digress..

I have tried multiple phone numbers I have found across the internets trying to contact you and I have not been able to. I know AOL tries to hide their phone numbers from the word in an attempt not to speak to anyone. Great plan guys... If you do not pick up the phone, you won't get any complaints. I would like to say this is the business equivalent of Bugs Bunny not falling down off the edge of a cliff because he has not looked down to see that there is no ground beneath him.

Look, AOL/Time Warner is not exactly on everyone's A-list... You are getting sued for improper music distribution over the net... Not to mention that everyone is just waiting for Time Warner to sell you guys...Hello Micro$oft, yea hi its me AOL, forget about Yahoo, buy me!

Remember that article you guys wrote called "20th Century Brands That Will Disappear?" Well everyone thought you should be on the list... Don't even get me started on you whole Netscape.com is part of the social news thing... Oh wait I meant Propeller.com. Seriously... I think the wikipedia article for Propeller.com gets more hits then the actual website itself

Anyway, sorry to go on a rant... it's late and I have spent too much time on hold waiting for you to answer your phone. Hopefully you will respond to this loving post. My email is my first name followed by a dot and then my last name @ gmail.com.

P.S. I am sending this to all my AIM friends, Twitter friends, gmail friends, and my work friends and I am asking them to leave AOL/AIM and to move to other messaging platforms and to unify them with www.digsby.com. Oh I am also asking them to tell all there friends, and so on and so on....