To: billprob@aol.net

I am utterly astounded that after all the publicity about such scams, that at this late date, AOL is still letting obvious con jobs get through the aol mail interface. We've all read in the newspapers that AOL subscribers often receive email directing them to sham websites in order to glean the subscriber's credit card info from them.

The email was so obviously a ploy to one who is computer savvy, but I fear how many people succumb to these scams which are so easy for someone with even minimal web knowledge to initiate. It appears that with AOL's assistance, AOL customers just sit here ripe for the picking.

How come AOL with its proprietary interface cannot prevent such garbage from reaching its customers? For that matter, how come I cannot easily find even an email address to report such a problem to AOL within the AOL software? You hide direct contact methods from the public better than a rogue porn site.

AOL is really going downhill fast. I cannot imagine where your subscribers' 20+ dollars a month is being spent. I predict that within a couple of years we'll see the top management of AOL doing the perp walk when the business is in shambles and the fortune that you must take in is not properly accounted for. It surely isn't being spent to improve the services that millions of Americans pay good money for.




Below is the text of the obvious scam email which even the most rudimentary scan of the email header should have been able to prevent this from reaching AOL customers:
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Subj: AOL Account Update
Date: 1/20/2004 4:19:47 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: memberservices@aol.com (AOL Member Services)
Reply-to: memberservices@aol.com (AOL Member Services)
To: junior-killer-939@aol.com



Dear valued AOL member:
It has come to our attention that your billing updates are
out of order. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your
online experience and update your billing records you will not run
into any future problems with the online service. However, failure
to update your records will result in account suspension. Please
update your records by March 1st, 2004

Once you have updated your account records your AOL session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal. Failure to update will result in cancellation of service, Terms of Service (TOS) violations or future billing problems.

To update your AOL records click here:
http://my.aolcom/userpages/update



AOL Member Services


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Message-ID: <a8b03g1$923-t2e90h$c8@5px.a82>
From: "AOL Member Services" <memberservices@aol.com>
Reply-To: "AOL Member Services" <memberservices@aol.com>
To: <junior-killer-939@aol.com>
Subject: AOL Account Update
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 04:12:26 -0500
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="DA.FD583_BC7_B8D4C99AA_"
X-Priority: 3
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