Wow, this guy is an asshole, he was on hold for 11 minutes? Woopdeedoo Ive been on hold longer ordering pizza.
If this guy gets on national TV for this I should record one of my Suddenlink calls from work. I'm put on hold for 30+ minutes, techs that don't even know what day it is, and the same blanket excuse for any outage. Not to mention an vanity email server thats been MIA for 2 months now.

What are you complaining about, Coyote? This man is trying to help the situation by coming on national TV, in the interest that people such as yourself don't get treated so badly over the phone. He's not just getting on the show so he can complain.

I dont see where he was treated badly, the person he was talking to did his job, spoke politely, and was trying to keep a customer. Im not saying more people shouldnt speak out like this. But this guy was was treated like a saint compared to most "horror stories". And the fact the poor guy he talked to was fired for this is sad.

Know what's worse than canceling your AOL account? Keeping it. Do yourself a favor and get an unfettered internet connection.

The number one rule in customer service - The customer is always right. The man told him that he wanted the account canceled, and the operator refused to listen to his request. I have no problem with tying to keep a customer, but when the man is saying "Cancel the account" over and over again, the line has been crossed. Apparently AOL believed so, too, because this operator was fired. Obviously, he wasn't following company procedure. And I think the operator was extremely rude. It's like the man said, how could he make it any clearer?

This is actually a shortened version of the phone call, cut down in the interest of time for CNN. In the full length version, at one point the operator refuses to cancel the account until the man listens to every last one of AOL's offers. How can that not be called rude?

For the full phone call vist here. You can hear what I'm talking about four minutes into the call.

surely the operator was fired to uphold the pretense that he was a 'rogue employee' within AOL rather than the far likelier chance that he was doing exactly what he was told to do.

Meh, doesn't make him any less rude.

AOL is notorious for making it hard to cancel an account, they even had to pay a fine at one point! Here's a link to snippets from their "customer retention manual".

lol, this used to be one of my highest sifts with well over a hundred votes...but youtube had taken it down and the video was dead..../cry