DisSuggs4u

So, a little over a week ago, I went prowling the interwebs for an online storage service which would make it easy to share large files with friends/family. My search led me to a couple of candidates and from them I chose XDrive.

Since I am an AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) user, I thought this would be a great fit. So, I signed up for an account and then proceeded to upload files for testing. Everything was going great… or so I thought.
A week later, I noticed that I could no longer log in to AIM. The message I received was that my account had been “suspended.” “That’s odd,” I thought and did not think much else. Instead, I decided to let it simmer a couple of days to see if it fixed itself (especially since this has happened before, though not to me).

Day 2: no fix.

Day 3: no fix.

Day 4 (today): no fix. So, I started digging… and what I found absolutely pissed me off.

Basically, AOL’s XDrive service is somehow causing the suspension of AOL/AIM users who recently enrolled in the service. At first, the tie between the two seemed a stretch, but now the number of users affected by this problem is stacking up.

What is worse is that AOL will not provide support to AIM users who, like me, do not have a paid AOL account and only use the free AIM service. Their support staff tell you that they are not “trained” to work with free AIM accounts because most/all of the support tasks on those accounts are automated and the online support is absolutely no help at all.

So, where does that leave me? SOL, apparently.

The account which I have been using for *TEN* YEARS is now suspended with no way to reverse the damage… and all because I tried to sign up for one of their new services.

Way to go AOL! Just when I thought you could not lower the bar any further, you surprised me with an even worse way to treat your long-term customers. The real irony is that this only happened after I tried out one of your new services and was potentially going to adopt and share with friends and family.

AOL, you are dead to me. I will not sign up for another screen name. DisSuggs4U on AIM is no more. (Long live DisSuggs4U on GTalk.)

Anyone else out there, avoid XDrive like the plague.