Warner Woes

Three Film Companies Closed Down - AOL Fleecing The Public

June 4. 2008

Time Warner

Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner, has closed its Picturehouse, Warner Independent and New Line film companies, in the face of declining revenues. Warner Bros. has taken quite a few hits in the last 6 months with the majority of their releases tanking, losing huge amounts of money. “The Golden Compass” which cost $285 million to make and market, flopped, as did the $185 million dollar film “Speed Racer” which has severely underperformed at the box office and been branded a international bomb.

Time Warner’s AOL is also faltering. Many have fled the expensive internet provider in search of cheaper deals. The poor service does not justify the high costs. Not to mention, AOL is the king of fraudulent billing. Numerous people are charged for their service for months, sometimes years, after they leave AOL. They refuse to let people leave and continue to charge them.

I know a disabled man whose bank account had to be changed to stop AOL from billing him after he discontinued the service. However, shortly after, they found his new bank account number and started charging it again though he had cancelled his subscription. They have continued to bill him for almost a year and he has not been using their service at all.

That happened to me as well. They just kept on billing me even after I left their ISP until my bank shook them off. I have a friend that works at a major credit card company and she said so much of her time is regularly spent reversing charges on cards of former AOL customers, that are still being billed even though they cancelled their service and left the company for other ISPs like People PC, Net Zero and Comcast.

Many bank employees across the country have been faced with challenges as well at the hands of AOL's ruthless, relentless billing department. Even when you change your debit card or bank account number, they have a unit doing name and account searches to find your new banking information. 

If you do a search online, you’ll find many disgruntled AOL customers complaining of being billed well after they cancelled their ISP subscription with the company. They need to be brought up on fraud charges for this pervasive misconduct that is targeting scores of innocent consumers. Just because your company is losing a lot of money, doesn’t give you the right to do this to the public.

Time Warner to shut Picturehouse, Warner Independent studios

May 8, 2008 - LOS ANGELES: Time Warner Inc. said Thursday it will close its Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures film studios and eliminate 70 jobs in the latest cost-cutting move since Jeff Bewkes took over as chief executive on Jan. 1…In February, Time Warner announced it was laying off 450 people at New Line Cinema as the independent studio was absorbed into Warner Bros.

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