[cyrialize]

My wife's grandparents use and pay for AOL. I think they pay for a premium package? All I know is that it handles their internet, web browsing, and email.

One day they had issues setting it up, so they call a help line. They ended up being scammed, and paid this person ~$200 to fix their issue. After it happened, they immediately called me up and asked if they were scammed.

I told them that unfortunately, they were. Surprisingly though, the scammer did actually fix their issue.

[x187463]

Are you using the word scam to describe AOL overcharging for helpdesk service or was the helpdesk not affiliated with AOL and they just happened to know how to fix the problem (or maybe they caused it?)?

[cyrialize]

My apologies, I should've been clear!

AOL doesn't charge for any helpdesk service at all. It explicitly says on their website that all helpdesk services are free and they'll never charge you.

The scam was that the scammers had a fake helpdesk service that showed up that my wife's grandparents ended up paying for.

The scammers did actually fix the issue, but the scam was that the grandparents should have never been charged!

[Thorrez]

Was it really a scam then? Or just extremely overpriced?

[cyrialize]

My apologies, I should've been more clear!

The scam was that this service is actually free provided by AOL. The grandparents shouldn't have ever been charged, they just ended up finding scammers that actually knew how to fix the issue.

[jimmydddd]

I think what folks are getting at is that it might not have been an outright scam. Just a third-party company that charged for its help desk. Many folks are willing pay for services like email that they could have otherwise gotten for free. The "scam" may have been more on the part of Google which elevates paid links to the top of the search results.