I must admitt. I am a long time aol user and long time aol shareholder. AOL used to be my largest holding. Luckily, I repositioned over the last 6 months which made aol less then 1% of my portfolio. I still loved aol, and always want shares and still do, but I did not need or want so many shares and wanted the bulk of my holdings in others such as qcom, cmgi, jdsu and etc, etc......I love the merger and am glad to still be holding a few hundred shares ( although, I am writing covered calls against them ), but think it will be dead money for awhile...at least the rest of this year. Long term, I think aol/twx will be a goliath, but dead money nonetheless for the short term. Creates an excellent opportunity for writing cc's.
Anyway...I am also a long term aol user. Except for the problems aol had years ago with the busy signals, I have never had a problem. I swore by it. So well worth the money it is not even funny. I could be considered as loyal a user as you could have. Nothing free could ever get me to switch, nothing faster could and etc, etc....I was loyal aol thru and thru. Well, the last month has been a disaster. I have more problems on a daily basis then I have had in all these years combined. This morning, which was a typical morning for the last month, I watched my computer try to sign on many times only to receive these no access messages. Then after getting on, within a minute, the system would lock up and tell me aol has quit responding. This goes on for hours. It doesnt matter where I am or what I am doing, it is the same old crap. I have tried every trick in the book, talked to every expert known to mankind. Nothing works, and the frustration is getting almost too much to bear. I find it hard to believe, but I am getting very close to bagging the service as it is now more hassle then it is worth. The only reason I havent yet, is I want to keep my e-mail address as I have had it for a long, long time.
Anyway, AOL TECH has been zero help and I am about at the end of my rope. I wont sell my shares as I only have a few hundred left and will let them sit for the future, but I can tell you this...if I still had a large holding, it would have been sold as I am not liking what I am seeing enough to hold many shares. The scary thing is I am as devoted to aol as one can be. If my attitude is changing then that is very telling to me.
Good luck and good weekend to all |
