4.01 What does America Online cost? The basic monthly fee is $9.95, which includes five free hours. Additional time beyond the five free hours costs $3.50 per hour. There is an additional $2.00 a month fee to have your bill debited from a checking account. The rates are the same regardless of the time of day you call, the day of the week you call, or the speed of your modem. Charter members pay slightly lower rates. The fees are calculated per minute. Partial minutes are rounded up to the nearest minute. Members calling from outside the lower forty-eight states pay an additional twenty cents per minute access charge. Access charges apply at all times, even in otherwise free areas. The access charges go to the access providers, such as DataPac, SprintNet, and Tymnet. See chapter 5 to learn more about access providers. Members of the America Federation of Teachers qualify for a 10% discount. Just use keyword "aft" and complete the application. You will need to provide your local union number. America Online also has a program for schools. School accounts must be paid using a purchase order, and the school must sign on for a minimum of four months. Once the monthly hours are used, no further logins are permitted. This prevents the school from running up a huge bill when a second grader figures out the teacher's password. To get more information or to join the school program, call 1-800-344-6219. SCHOOL RATES _________________________________ 10 hours per month for $24.95 20 hours per month for $44.95 30 hours per month for $59.95 I'm not kidding about students deciphering passwords. In one school I consulted for, a second grader figured out his teacher's At Ease password. The teacher was using "password" as a password. 4.02 How can I tell how much money I've spent? Use keyword "billing". When the Accounts and Billing window appears, doubleclick "Current Month's Billing Summary". You'll see the following information, for which I've provided an explanation: Your Next Billing Date The next date your credit card or checking account will be charged. Current Balance Total charges for the month to date. This figure does not include your $9.95 monthly membership fee. Send a check for this amount to Les Jones, 316 Hog Heaven Blvd., San Quentin, Iowa. Free Minutes Remaining The number of free minutes left out of the 300 free minutes you receive each month. Free Dollars Remaining Your free minutes expressed as a dollar amount. Credited Free Minutes Your free minutes remaining from time earned for signing up new members, time won during online contests, and time given by the credit department for bad downloads and inappropriate charges. These minutes are used after you use up your free minutes. Credited Dollars Remaining Your credited minutes expressed as a dollar amount. Last Month's Balance The amount you were charged last month, including your $9.95 monthly membership fee. 4.03 When is the billing information updated? Billing information is updated when you sign off. Let's say you check your bill and find out you owe ten dollars. Then you stay online and spend an hour chatting, downloading, or reading messages. When you check your bill again, it will still say you owe ten dollars. To see the updated information, you'll have to sign off and sign back on. 4.04 How can I tell how long I've been online? Use keyword "clock". The AOL software will display a clock showing the current time and the amount of time you've been online.   By default, the online clock displays the current time in the Eastern time zone. To change this, select   Preferences from the Members menu, click System Preferences, and doubleclick Select Time Zone. This option is only available with AOL 2.1. This does not change the time stamp on email or message board postings, which are reported in Eastern Standard Time. 4.05 Why does selecting "clock" from the Go To menu take me to _Time_ magazine? The keyword for the online clock used to be "time", but "time" is now the keyword for the _Time_ magazine forum. You need to change the keyword to "clock". You'll find instructions for editing the Go To menu in chapter 13. 4.06 Did I get charged while I was in a free area? It's possible, but don't complain to customer service just yet. If your complaint is based on the online clock, you should know that the online clock (keyword "clock") reports the total time for the current session. It keeps running even when you're in a free area. Likewise, the Goodbye screen reports your total time online, including time spent in free areas. These numbers are NOT the ones AOL uses for billing. Some members were being charged for time spent in free areas, but this problem seems to have been solved. If you think you were wrongly charged, contact customer service by using keyword "credit". It's helpful, but not always necessary, to have a record of the dates and times you think you were charged. 4.07 What are free areas? Some parts of AOL are free of hourly connect charges. Basically, the free areas are all in Members' Online Support. To enter this area, choose Members' Online Support from the Go To menu, or use keywords "help" or "support". You'll know you're entering a free are because you'll receive the following message:   To return to the paying side, choose Exit Free Area from the Go To menu. 4.08 Do any areas cost extra? Yes, but only a very few areas. Extra-cost areas are well marked, so you don't have to worry about entering them accidentally. Mercury News Library This is a premium searchable news service. Other parts of the Mercury Center (keyword "mercury") do not incur extra charges. Fax and paper mail These two services cost extra. Before sending the fax or paper mail, AOL notifies you of the charge and gives you the option of canceling. Travel and Shopping Your credit card is charged for any items you purchase in Travel and Shopping. You aren't charged for window shopping. 4.09 Do I get charged when AOL downloads new icons? Yes. When AOL adds a new service, you'll receive new icons and databases for the service. In the past, AOL automatically downloaded the new icons whenever a service was created. That changed recently. Now AOL will only download the icons when they're needed, such as when you enter a new service for the first time, or when the icons need to be displayed on the Welcome window. 4.10 How do I get credit for lost time? Use keyword "credit". Give a brief explanation of what you were doing: downloading, reading mail, etc. Give an approximation of how much time you lost. You can also use keyword "credit" to contest billing errors. 4.11 How do I use parental controls? Some parts of AOL aren't appropriate for children. You can block your children's access with parental controls. To use the controls, sign on to AOL using your master screen name. The master screen name is the one you created the first time you signed on to AOL. Use keyword "parental control". You can control access for each screen name. There are four options: Block Instant Messages Prevents sending or receiving Instant Messages. Block All Rooms Blocks access to all rooms within People Connection. Block Member Rooms Only blocks access to chat rooms created by AOL members. Children can still access official chat rooms, such as the Treehouse. You'll almost certainly want to use this option. The member rooms can get pretty risqué. Block Conference Rooms Blocks access to the meeting areas in other parts of AOL, such as Computing and Software, and Learning and Reference. Parents will also want to limit how much money their children spend, but AOL doesn't provide time limits on screen names. To limit your child's access, give them their own screen name, but keep their password a secret. Then they can only sign on when you type in the password. To keep track of how much money they've spent, use keyword "billing" and request detailed billing info. You'll receive a report that shows exactly how much money each screen name spent. 4.12 What are telecommunications surcharges? These are charges for customers calling from outside the 48 contiguous states. These charges only apply to customers in Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada. The money goes to local access providers, such as DataPac in Canada, and SprintNet and Tymnet in the United States. The current rate is twenty cents a minute. Charges are rounded up to the nearest minute, which is how the local access providers charge America Online. Telecommunications surcharges are part of the America Online bill for customers outside the lower 48 states 4.13 Can more than one person use the same account? Not only can they use the same account, they can each have their own screen name, password, mailbox, preferences, and profile. Likewise, one person can have more than one screen name. An account can have as many as five screen names. Currently, you have to log onto each screen name separately to view mail sent to that screen name. Instructions 1. Use keyword "billing". 2. From the Accounts and Billing window, doubleclick "Create/Delete a Screen Name". 3. In the next window, doubleclick "Create a Screen Name". 4. Enter your new screen name and follow the system prompts. You can do the same thing by choosing Edit Screen Names from the Members menu. I recommend the above method because it can be done in a free area. 4.14 How do I create or delete a screen name? You can't delete or edit the master screen name (the screen name you created when you first signed on to AOL). You can, however, delete any other screen names, or create new screen names. One account can have up to five screen names. Instructions 1. Choose Keyword from the Go To menu. 2. Type "billing" and click the OK button. 3. Doubleclick Create/Delete a Screen Name. 4. You'll see options for creating and deleting screen names. Read the help files in this area for more information. When you delete a screen name, that name will be unavailable for six months. 4.15 How do I cancel my account? There's a difference between canceling an account and deleting a screen name. When you delete a   screen name, you won't be able to use that screen name anymore, but you will be able to use your other screen names. When you cancel an account, you're ending that membership completely. Use keyword "cancel". To request cancellation on a specific date, click the Write to Billing icon and leave a message requesting cancellation on that date. To request immediate cancellation, click the Continue button and continue through the windows. Cancellation requests are processed at 10:00 AM Eastern time, seven days a week. When you cancel your account, email sent to your account is deleted. Anyone trying to send mail to any of your old screen names will be told that person doesn't exist. Your screen name will be reserved for at least six months. During that six months you can reactivate your account and use your old screen names. To reactivate an account, call Customer Service at 1-800-827-6364. Canadian members should call 1-703-893-6288.   I accidentally canceled my account while I was researching this question! I sent a quick note to the AOL staff to cancel my cancellation.