TUCSON - Customer services policies that led to an agreement America Online struck last week with New York's attorney general strike at the heart of the company's Tucson operations, one of six places worldwide where AOL employees try to talk customers out of canceling their accounts.

Under terms of the deal with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Internet service provider must now record all cancellation requests through a third party, provide refunds to New York consumers who were wrongfully charged after canceling their accounts, pay $1.25 million to the state in penalties and costs, and stop requiring that its employees meet a minimum number of subscriber "saves" to earn a bonus.

The agreement is binding only to consumers of New York, but AOL will institute the changes companywide, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said. Even so, AOL's past policies regarding member retention are standard industry practice, Graham said.

Arizona customers who say they were wrongfully charged won't be getting refunds anytime soon. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard has no court cases against AOL, said Andrea Esquer, Goddard's press secretary. Esquer couldn't say if there have been any complaints - the consumer fraud act prohibits the AG's office from discussing any consumer complaints that have not resulted in a complaint in court or a lawsuit, she said.

One local customer, Stephanie Dawson, was billed three months after her son took his computer with him when he moved away, leaving her with no way to access her account. She said she made her first call to cancel her AOL in early last December, but was charged through February of this year.

"I called to cancel the service and they told me that they had already billed my American Express for the month so I might as well keep it, but I didn't even have a computer," Dawson said. "I called back after the month they billed me for and they wouldn't let me cancel. They said, 'Well, for $9 a month, we'll give you service,' and I again told them I didn't even have a computer. Then they asked me to send back some kind of cable thing that came with the service and I did, but they said they never got it, so they charged me a $99 equipment charge."

For about 30 minutes of Internet service last June, Tucsonan Donna Brandt was billed an extra two months from AOL, Brandt said. Most of that 30 minutes was spent trying to cancel her account online, Brandt said.

"I paid the account by check and then was also charged on my credit card," Brandt said. "I, for one, would like to see this company pay restitution and then apologize to all the customers they have bilked."

JOro Valley resident Gene Ziegler said he'd been well-advised to make sure he didn't hang up while trying to cancel his account last week until he'd received his cancellation confirmation number.

"They refused to give me my cancellation number until they read me several minutes of verbiage telling me something about why they are so good. I just put the phone down for a while and did not listen," Ziegler said. "Instead of being friendly, helpful and pleasant it was a complete hassle."

Processing customers' cancellation requests was the antithesis of AOL's member retention strategy, said Rob Horgan, who fielded calls for AOL's Tucson operations at 155 N. Rosemont Blvd. from December of 2003 through July of 2004. Horgan was fired by AOL and has sued the company for $3,000 in commission bonuses for retaining customers.

What makes the process difficult for the customer and the consultant is AOL's insistence on reading a script to customers in its entirety, Horgan said.

"People became extremely hostile with us on the phone," he said. "If the customers said, 'I called you today to quit,' you had to say, 'What are some of the things that you would normally like to do on the Internet?' and if they said, 'It's none of your I business what I do on the Internet,' you had to stay with the script. If they said, 'Shut the hell up and cancel my service,' you still had to continue with the script."

Employees who strayed from the script and answered customers' questions could be fired, said Horgan, now a local Realtor. His supervisors monitored calls to ensure employees were sticking to the script verbatim, no matter how irate the customer became, he said.

"There were people literally crying on the floor on a bi-daily basis," he said. "When I went into complain about the script, to say that it was making our customers upset to have to listen to it and that it was making for a very stressful work environment for our consultants, the supervisors told me that the 'script was perfect."'

AOL uses scripted material because it ensures customers are aware of all its members services and to "show the value built into the service," spokesman Graham said.

"There are also portions of the conversation that have to follow the right dialogue and pursue the right terms and there are reasons for that," he said. "Part of it is consistency and part of it is being in accordance with international guidelines."

Member retention consultants "identify member needs, educate our members about how AOL is an invaluable part of their lives and resell the member on AOL products and services," according to the job description posted on the company's Web site. Qualifications include a strong ability to "sell and resell AOL by problem solving, rebutting objections and negotiating with members.