866-859-0176

This number call and remains  in silence, nobody answers back, then they hung up the phone.

Received phoney invoice stating money past due from Interner provider
The #866-859-0176 is phoney and should be reported to your local post office.

Received presorted first class brown envelope letter, asking me to call 866-859-0176 to pay an outstanding balance of $40 and to reinstate my account. The AOL web site says all correspondence comes in white or blue envelopes. The phone number I called said they are AOL Collections, but then could not give me a way to verify their phone number directly at the AOL web site. Dexonline reverse lookup showed no entry for their number. They told me to call my bank who could verify the number as being AOL Collections. I said, "You mean call my bank and tell them I have this phone number and they'll pull out a book that magically tells what it is?" Response: "Something like that." My reply: "And you're sure you don't mean call my credit card company?" And he said "Well try that, too."

I LOOKED FOR OVER HALF AN HOUR ON AOL.COM WEB SITE AND COULD NOT FIND ANY PHONE NUMBERS FOR HELP.

I recieved a letter supposedly from AOL collections......saying my account has already been cancelled but I owe 77.70 and to send it directly to a post office box in Florida.  Also has a place to insert my credit card info and name and signature and exp. date....and this is the phone # to call.

today is March 3, I also received this kind of mail.  They asked me to pay for $47.96 for the outstanding balance.  When I told them that I already called to cancel in Sept. 2008.  
I wonder if this phone is real number or fake.

This is the ph # from the collection dept of AOL. I found it at help.aol.com , belive it or not it`s an official aol ph #, they gave me precised information about my aol accounts and the terms of service . i called them like twice regarding my account and all I can say is great CUSTOMER SERVICE

These guys have sent a letter to our home about an outstanding bill with aol, form over five years ago!!!
We have never had this internet provider.
And kept tying to get the credit card #.

Got one of these in the mail too, with this phone number.  Just checked my AOL account at myaccount.aol.com-no outstanding balance (of course not, free email!) These are phoney.  But watch out, I had a fraud charge on my credit card from "AOL" as well.  Luckily, the bank refunded.

PLEASE READ: How to handle an AOL account scam if you've never set one up...

My wife had a similar problem. She got a letter in the mail saying she owed $105 for an account which she created in 2005 and has not paid for the last month or so; she never created this account, the phone number didn't match up, did not recognize the screen name, she could not verify the last 4 digits of the card it was issued under (we tried everyones, hers, mine, and her mother is laws-no luck), and no charges for the last 5 years were on ANY of our cards. BUT, the 1-866-859-0176 IS THE ACTUAL AOL COLLECTION NUMBER. It's hard to find a number on the AOL help website, BUT you need to go to the corporate website to find a billing contact number, http://corp.aol.com/contact-info. I called the number and asked them if they had a collection dept. and they gave me the 1-866 number above! After we told them our story what they did was give us the number to the AOL fraud department, 1-800-307-7969, and they cleared everything up in a matter of minutes, great service! So do not pay before going through this process, and please don't give the 1-866 people a lot of crap, they're just doing their job.

What probably happened is someone got ahold of my wife's info back in 2005 and created an account. What they did was probably put it under a phony or one of their credit cards then later had it cancelled. When that happens AOL finally contacts us and we're like "what the heck?" The only thing is we can't access the account because we don't know the last four digits of the card, we can only pay for it, which I think is weird. Once we pay for it (if you do) the scammer who has the information "may" have access to our new number that we payed the account with, and that would screw us over.

So please, everyone calm down, re-read this if you need to, maybe vent a little bit, and it will all be alright :) I was pretty pissed to begin with also...trust me...but AOL does have a pretty craptastic billing system...

I got calls from Romania 2 weeks ago asking to pay an AOL bill. I laughed at them and they hung up. Now I get the brown envelope asking to pay AOL to a PO Box 65101, Sterling VA 20165-8801. Its obviously a scam. I am sure hundreds of old AOL customers are getting scammed by this.

And AOL has nothing about this on their website?

lol... the call goes to AOL's customer service office in romania,  They speak better english then the indians but are just as useless at solving the problem.  Aol also gives them fake american names.  I kept asking the rep if that was the name his mother gave him and he kept just saying "thats my name with the company"..lol  tell them to go to hell.  reported fraudulent charges to credit card company .. and they were issued a chargeback... so they had the nerve to bill me for the charges that were charged off and the chargeback fees.. these guys are idiots.  I would not pay them if I owed them just based on the fact they outsource thier call center outside the US.  F-em

I do not owe Aol money. I cancelled account long ago and Aol stopped access to the email account so there has been no activity on Aol from me. They continued to bill my credit card until Amex stopped it. They are now sending me notices that I owe them money when in actuality they owe me. Or at least someone is sending me notices and I question the legitimacy of all this. I sent a letter to them to ask that they verify, no response. I tried to call this number however no one answers and the message says to input a persons name. Well there is no name on the letter so clearly I am not supposed to speak with anyone. This may be an attempt to frustrate the person they are harassing into paying money to Aol that they do not owe just to get rid of them. I plan to contact the Attorney General's office to see it others have had the same issues.

866-859-0176 is a valid Aol. phone number. You can also contact Aol. by calling 800-827-6363. And btw, stopping payments at the bank, does not close and Aol. account...it's stated in the terms of service. It's all not that bad...call them or go online to cancel. I had a great experience while calling the customer service department...:)

this is real. the account that my sister had was through netscape. if you look at you credit card bill and call the # for netscape they let you know they give you the same # as what is on the letter. because my sister's card was used fraudlently she had to cancel it and then natscape could not draw on it automatically. so it caused the account to go into collections.

My brother got a letter saying he owes $25.90.. and according to this letter the service has
been suspended.... yeah sure I am using it now.
We have had AOL back 5 years ago... in December 2006 we changed to Time Warner.
And then in January we changed to Verizon...
My brother is deaf I try calling them for him, they will not answer my questions...
The weird thing is the phone number on the bill  the area code is 855- if you check
this area code is a non operating future toll free number.
Clearly these are crack pots trying to make money.
On the suppose bill they do not mention paying by check, they just want your
credit card number name as it appears and signature.
Clearly a scam

Got one today # 855-774-4423 - Have never had AOL.. says we owe $19.88 and will be turned into collections - only asks for credit card info... I called. told the lady I knew it was a scam and was going to report it.  She told me computers were down for update and to call back.... Ha

2 Collection letters from AOL. PO Box 651010, Sterling Va 20165-8810, Phone 855-774-4423 about a week apart. No specific account info. They want $59.80. I haven't had an actively billed AOL account in 10 years. Checked all my cards and not getting billed there either. Contacted AOL at phone number listed online - nobody seems to know anything - they don't know whether it is a scam or not. Tried to transfer me, but disconnected me. Called again - they gave me a number that went nowhere. Just have to watch my credit reports and if it shows up, I will dispute it...

Got the same AOL collection letter as above - PO Box 651010, Sterling Va, Phone 855-774-4423.  I've never had an AOL account - they want $103.60.  When I call, they ask for credit card info to 'verify my identity' (seriously?) in order to file a fraudulent claim.  Refused to give out CC info (duh.) and they said they could verify id by my social security #.  Dumb and dumber.  Total scam.

My mother received one of these letters this week.  I called and went through a similar exchange as several others.  They want to verify identity and debit card number, and I refused to give them her name or any other information (other than the account number on the letter).  My mother has never had AOL, not even an old account, so this is obviously a scam!!!  I believe they send these letters out knowing that a good percentage of people will pay this bill just to avoid a threat of collections.  I'd really like to know if and how to pursue a complaint about this.