Hacked AOL account? Let Google teach you how to hack it yourself.
Updated 7-1-09.
Since I wrote this post it's risen to the #1 slots for the keyword searches mentioned below, so to save you time if you're here for the phone number to report a hacked AOL or AIM account: it's 1-800-307-7969.
Tonight I typed "report hacked aol email" into Google and got, among other irrelevant things: "how to hack an AOL account". Brilliant! Just to ensure my fury shot from moderate to severe, I typed "contact aol hacked" next, and got the same damn results....curses on Google. May fire rain down from heaven all over their precious servers.
I'm trying to get someone help at this very moment for an account that's been hacked and I CANNOT DO IT. Half of it's Google's fault for not returning the phone numbers this person needs - the other half is AOL's fault for not allowing free members to report hacked accounts (I don't have this nailed down yet, but that's the info I'm working on in this person's email, since I list a number to report hacked accounts here; I'm trying to find out if this person called it or not).
7-1-09: Got a response from the person who sought my help with her hacked account last night: "Thank you for giving me this number. I had not called it, but I did today, and they were helpful and cancelled the account. Hopefully it's all taken care of. Thank you again!" Whew.
Since I had a feeling she simply could not find the number, I have added the number itself to my links list (you will see it if you look now on the side of the page) so no one else has to go through not being able to find it again. I hate seeing someone suffer for the lack of something so simple - an AOL phone number that everyone seems to want to hide.
While I'm relieved the person who emailed me is now getting help, and also relieved to learn AOL still assists free users who's accounts are hacked, as far as Google goes, after what I saw last night...Google can blow me.
I don't look at Bing, which has been around for what? maybe a few months? as the search engine that anyone expects to have all or even half of the answers.
And do you think people who've used AOL more or less exclusively for years and years as their ISP/web portal even know what Bing is? Sorry, but I guarantee many of them don't.
Most people I know, if they go online, and whether they use AOL or not, barely know what Google is, and even they don't understand how to use it to track down hard-to-find results.
Edited at 2009-07-05 04:54 pm (UTC)
It's gained a lot of market share and still gaining.
My computer illiterate aunt asked me what Bing was. I said it's like Google but a tad advanced (better, to her). LOL
What search engine do you use?
Getting a lot of Spam on here?
Google. You have to use what you hate in order to remind yourself exactly why you hate it. Plus I'm used to using it. Bing is good, but it needs to get better than Google before I make the jump.
Used AOL's Mail RIA yet? This is one of the questions a certain someone asked me one post back (actually she just asked if I use AOL's email, which I don't - I just collect spam with the RIA interface). I like the RIA - but not AOL's regular online email. If something's good, I won't knock it, no matter which company it belongs to.
Edited at 2009-07-05 02:26 am (UTC)