By now, you may very well have heard about Vincent Ferrari, the 30-year old who tried in vain to cancel his AOL ISP service. The story is nothing new in the chronicles of sucky customer service, except for a few minor details:
- Vincent records the conversation and posts it to his blog, insignificant thoughts (as if!)
- He gets Dugg (3108 times and counting...)
- He is interviewed on NBC and the video is uploaded to YouTube
- New York Times gets in on the act (gee, I wonder what would happen if I tried to cancel my New York Times subscription, assuming I had one)
- AOL apologizes (well that settles it...all is forgiven then. PS Can I assume you've renewed your AOL membership for another zillion years?)
PS Vincent's blog (click on thumbnail for error message) is crashomundo for now (wonder if Earthlink will sponsor his increased bandwidth?) 
So bottom line...this is another nail in the coffins of lazy, stubborn and arrogant corporations who pay nothing but lip service to their customers and customer service in general, opting for IVR labyrinths, cookie-cutter FAQ's and one-way mirrors. You can expect more taped calls like this to surface in an increasing fashion.
"This call may be recorded or monitored to improve customer service" has never rung so true!
Hat Tip: Clive in Oz (bad news travels fast in the social mediasphere)
