AOL / AIM Screen Name Woes - Read!

[cdcollura]

Good morning,

My bald spot must be at least three-times bigger this morning!!!

Finally gave up on my AIM account (AOL IM).


The past few months, I was plagued with a barrage of SPAM, weird text messages to my cell-phone, and viruses. Luckily I was able to catch them, but decided to clean house on old emails (Yahoo, etc) and remove the ones I never used in years.

This morning, I traced the source of the SPAM I was getting and found it to be a program ("spider" program, strips off user names, phone numbers, etc) that keeps stripping off my USER ID on AOL IM. I already deleted my Yahoo email, so now I always use either my gmail or regular (main) email from now on.

AOL (and any of its associates, such as AIM) is by far, a solid piece of dark, brown #@!$. Period.

I was up this morning since 9 AM trying to figure out how to remove my screen name from AOL IM, which was from 4 years ago after I switched from AOL to Bellsouth DSL back in 2003 - 2004.

After running around in circles and circles, calling, on-hold, etc … The final words were directed to be (see below, from on-line document) by an AOL representative…

FAQ 11: Screen names created at AIM.com cannot be deleted

This is total $#@! … I am a computer programmer, and I know how these things work. Imagine how many screen names (unused) are sitting on their server wasting HDD space?

Stay away from AOL … Unless you know nothing about email or computers, and / or have a full head of hair to rip out from the frustration you might get from it ;-(

Meanwhile, the sole source of the SPAM / text messages, including some that aroused suspician to someone I was dating in chicago, I was getting is still out there for the world to see!

I just love how AOL still claims: “So easy to use, no wonder why it’s #1”.

Yeah right.

It's easy: Add link such as www.delete.profile.aim and have something (such as "input name" ; delete <server-path> "name") and that's it ... Easy ... Any computer programmer can do that in their sleep...

 

[Tim Vasquez]

AOL is one of the sites that we block signups from on Stormtrack since a huge amount of spam comes from there; Yahoo is the other. We do block GMail but I will likely be opening that up this week since it's a little more reputable and we seem to have a pretty good spam block / user validation system in place now.

I agree AOL shouldn't be idiots and should treat their customer as king. These days a lot of Fortune 500 companies seem to have forgotten that principle. However I would bet that (1) they outsource all this customer service to India and the people there prefer to put in minimum effort, and (2) there may be 1% uncertainty that the request to delete the account is authentic, thus if the real owner comes in and finds their account is deleted the %(* could really hit the fan.

Tim

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

Having been a AIM user for quite some time, there is some good news. If you do not log in to your account for over 6 months the account will eventually be deleted automatically. This is AIM's method of keeping valuable disk space. Just make sure you go into all of your options and add random characters for your info, name, zip code and delete all your emails and then log off and dont log in for 6 months. Do a test email from another email to your aim email to test after 6 months to see if the account was deleted.

Hope this helps...

 

[Jarrod Cook]

I could not tell by your post, but if you used the actual AIM software from AOL, that thing is and always has been junk. I have an AIM account but I haven't used the actual AOL software for years. There are many other free and open source software programs out there to access AIM and other IM accounts. I use pidgin (www.pidgin.im). Simple, clean, no viruses, and no pop ups.

 

[Dann Cianca]

I used MEEBO for all my instant messaging (includes AIM, MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo, and Jabber options). I have it set such that only people on my "buddy list" (which combines all of your IM clients) can IM me. Thus, no spam. I love it! There's also a FireFox Addon for it, which is nice.

 

[Johnathan Brouwer]

Meedo is good, the interface seems a bit confusing for me...AOL is the devil, and as a computer guy also do not recommend it to anyone.

I have had some luck with YIM, but it too seems to have a ton of spammers. I have use Skype now, it has a nice chat and conf. function. Most of all, its free!

 

[Jason Foster]

Having been a AIM user for quite some time, there is some good news. If you do not log in to your account for over 6 months the account will eventually be deleted automatically. This is AIM's method of keeping valuable disk space. Just make sure you go into all of your options and add random characters for your info, name, zip code and delete all your emails and then log off and don't log in for 6 months. Do a test email from another email to your aim email to test after 6 months to see if the account was deleted.

Hope this helps...

Hate to tell you...I just checked...and my old screen names came up fine...which I have not used since 2001. I do maintain one AOL IM name for regular IM'g (N3PRZ), and don't have any blocks, and don't get any spam (on IM). I actually use the e-mail [email protected] for any and all sites requesting an email account that I know is for spam....I never check the email there. I'll bet there is 150,000 plus spam messages waiting in there....oh well.

Overall, AOL is dead as a company. They didn't upgrade/update with the newer high speeds. Too many people got feed up with the poor quality service and tech help...so they rightfully have all but disappeared.

I'll have to check into some of these third party software accounts. I don't have any other IM accounts though so not sure if I need it.

 

[Adam Lucio]

I first started using AOL when i was 12, then AIM only from about 18 on...Ive been using AIM for 8 years now and have had minimal problems, yea I get the occasional spam IM, but im smart enough to recognize them and not click on a link thats says "WOW! CHECK OUT THESE PICS FROM THE PARTY!"

I did get a virus through a direct connect IM once when a buddy was sending me music files....but one incident in 8 years isnt bad. So you need to be a little more carefull if your going to directly link to someone elses PC, any bad file they got can easily migrate over to yours.

Its a matter of beefing up your PCs security, and knowing what not to click or open. I will continue to use AIM as long as its free. As far as AOL itself goes, Im surpised its even still around.

 

[Chip Redmond]

I used to have issues with spam and junk when I strictly used AIM. A friend of mine opened me up to what was then called Gaim and is now called Pigeon. I have recommended it to others to and everyone really likes it. Similar to MEEBO it lets you be logged onto more than one IM program such as Yahoo, AIM, and MSN all at the same time.

Chip

 

[Jarrod Cook]

I used to have issues with spam and junk when I strictly used AIM. A friend of mine opened me up to what was then called Gaim and is now called Pigeon. I have recommended it to others to and everyone really likes it. Similar to MEEBO it lets you be logged onto more than one IM program such as Yahoo, AIM, and MSN all at the same time.

Chip

It's called Pidgin, and I already mentioned it above. The URL is http://pidgin.im

That URL is different than what I posted above. I added www in the earlier post. Sorry about that if anyone was trying to find it.

 

[T Melton]

Seems as If I have had nothing but headaches from the time I started using AOL,things did speed up when I dropped them.I know AOL has supposed spam control but when I send things to spam they amazingly pop back up in my Email.Yahoo is not better in that respect.

 

[John Wetter]

It's called Pidgin, and I already mentioned it above. The URL is http://pidgin.im

For those using OS X, the program you'll want is called Adium. It uses the Pidgin libraries, but is OS X native. You can get it at: www.adiumx.com

-John

 

[David Dildine]

AOL is pretty worthless as an internet provider. As far AIM is concerned back in high school and college, AIM was THE thing to be on. It's completely fallen by the wayside but it was pretty revolutionary back in the late 90s as a means of communication.

For conformation's sake, those SNs never get deleted, ever. I probably had 8-10 of them.

 

[Leah Robertson]

For those using OS X, the program you'll want is called Adium. It uses the Pidgin libraries, but is OS X native. You can get it at: www.adiumx.com

-John

I was never able to get AIM to properly work on OS X and when it was "functioning," it would only work for about 2 minutes and then completely crash...good to know I'm not the only one who had compatibility issues with it. Never hear of Pidgin but will certainly try it. Meebo also works like a charm on OS X platforms.

 

[Glenn Dixon]

We do block GMail but I will likely be opening that up this week since it's a little more reputable and we seem to have a pretty good spam block / user validation system in place now. <snip>

Tim

Tim,

I just attempted to change my email address and see that Gmail is still blocked. What are the odds that this will change soon?

I have used Gmail almost exclusively for 2-3 years now. So does all my family, including my 77-year-old dad. I consider it mainstream....