I find it ironic that in the quote from Paul Schmidman the word inaccuate is spelled "innacurate

I find it ironic that in the comment above from Dan Schultz the word inaccurate is spelled "inaccuate"

I find it ironic that in the comment above from Shadow the name Shultz is spelled "Schultz"

Paul "Schmidi" Schmidman seems to have been acting as a representative of AOL in his actions with Body by Jake, and that there was no reason for Body by Jake to assume that he was not empowered to speak for AOL for contract negotiations. If a senior vice president of a company makes you a promise on behalf of the company, as far as I'm concerned, it's binding. AOL owes Body by Jake the remainder of the funds promised, and ought to throw in some restitution for this kind of BS game that seems to be coming out.

I find it ironic that the quote was about Schmidman, not by Schmidman and what the heck is an inaccuate?

I find it moronic that the mispelled quote, attributed to "Schmidi", was actually a quote from "an industry source".

I can't believe that people actually took the time to check the spelling of an article and then comment on it. Does anyone work in this country anymore??? BTW You go Jake. Stick it to the man!

Y eye aint nvr ceen aye buncha wakkoes spelin' aye buncha cow pie slingin' wiper snapin' holer swalerin' mud slingin' trayl dust eetin' krap az eue c hear! trie thiss wun en yur spelchekr boyz!

Gesundheit.

I agree with Mucous. When a company has allowed an officer level executive (which is pretty much what 'Vice President' implies) to open negotiations with another party, that other party has a reasonable expectation that the officer is negotiating both in good faith and with authority to bind the company. In that respect, Schmidman was acting as an authorized agent. When a company fires an agent, or if the agent quits, it is the company's responsibility to make a public notice that they ahve withdrawn agency authority, and to make a reasonable effort to inform existing partners with whom that agent had dealings. It is not the responsibility of the other company to keep checking whether the agent still has authority to bind the first company. This is pretty much exactly the situation of typical cases taught in every law school and business school. If the facts are as presented in the article, then AOL owes Body By Jake the money. AOL should shut up and pay up. Instead, they seem to think they can exhaust BBJ's resources until BBJ folds up and agrees to a lesser settlement. Shame on AOL!

I find it moronic that anyone cares how inaccurate is speeeeled

Someone needs to look up the word "ironic." It doesn't mean what you think it means.

I find it ironic that anyone agrees with "Mucous".

When I tried to cancel my membership with AOL after my free month was up (in 1993), I was on hold three separate times for forty-five minutes, an hour three minutes, and thirty seven minutes. My letter complaining about it was never answered, and I ended up getting charged another month. As far as I'm concerned, AOL has always been about screwing people for money, and outside of Nevada that's illegal. I hope BBJ ends up owning AOL.

AOL has always treated its customers like crap so good luck to B by J ' No Company deserves it more than AOL C

Go Jake! Back in the 90s after AOL's "all you can use" monthly fee debacle when nobody could get online ... I called to cancel and was given the runaround. Finally, took down all info on the rep I spoke to, time, etc. and was shocked to find on my next credit card statement they went ahead and billed me again. I called their "service center" and was told I never cancelled and that I was lying. I quoted chapter and verse of times, names, and they still denied it. Called the credit card company to contest the charge and was told ... "they do this all the time. We will take it off; no problem." Every now and then I am asked to respond to a survey as to how likely I would be to do business with AOL and I always say ... never. Screw me once but not again. Why people continue to use them when so many other better providers are out there amazes me. BTW, so happy to see the spelling police frequent this site. Was wondering where they were hanging! ;-)

Correct spelling is a sign of intelligence and attention to detail. Not caring about correct spelling is a sign of ignorance, stupidity or both.

I, like many others, will NEVER do business with AOL again. Take their socks Jake.

I am glad we have so many spelling experts, I am glad AOL was'nt spelled wrong. AOL needs another lawsuit, it's the only way they listen. Here's one for the small guy! Please the excuse that company procedures were not followed by a employee does'nt work as courts have already ruled agianst that lame excuse.

I have a question for Major AOL hater. Why do you "hope BBJ ends up owning AOL"?

I kinda think it would be cool if there were no countries and people could just go anywhere they want to go and do whatever it is that makes them happy without being hassled by anyone. It sucks that there's so many laws and weird restrictive shit that makes it so we can't do what we want, within reason of course. That is to say, people should not rape, molest, mug or otherwise hurt each other. So, I guess pigs are a necessary evil, but they don't have to be pigs; they can be men appointed to the position, by something like a jury of their peers, and actually serve and protect. As far as career criminals, or repeat offenders, they should all be sent to Manhattan. And a giant wall should be erected around it. The dregs of society must somehow learn to live amongst themselves, with only Isaac Hayes to lead them. And Lee Van Cleef would be in charge of guarding the wall, or something. I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of nuances to this sort of argument, and I'm not going to pretend to know about it.

Gee, Steve thanks for an article that if it wasn't an AOL story would be considered bizarre. OK, it IS bizarre. The idea that a huge company's defense is essentially 'we have no control over the officers of our company' is past ludicrous. As others have noted, AOL is known for ahhhhhhh 'low business ethics'?. On another note, I suggest that eweek.com get one of those 'forum-spellchecker add-ins' to appease the 'spelling police' who can then rant about people who use the 'ignore' option too often.

Many years ago AOL sent me an unordered guide book and fraudently charged my credit card, refusing to refund or take back the book. The present news is not surprising.

I couldn't agree more with most of the comments posted above. I was glad that I had never ever tried one of those lame AOL offers, thanks to my experience with Sprint, another company with no ethical values with crappy products (pretty much bad reception anywhere with a PCS phone back in early 2000s). The funny thing was that they were supposed to have the best wireless reception in the area I was living at the time since they had their own towers there. Sprint also over charged me, in fact, they were billing me the same bill 3 times!!! I actually paid them twice before I found out about it. I’ll spare you from all the gruesome details but it took 8 calls and 2 faxes of my checking statements (which they claimed that they never received it, yeah right, give me a break!!) before I can get it straighten out. Trying to cancel is another royal pain on the butt. I ended up matching to a local store and made a scene before I can persuade the store rep to call in and cancel it for me. A word of advice to those who are current Sprint customers, watch closely on your bills because you don't want to go through the same thing I did!!! I think the first thing business school should teach these corporate hot shots the word "ethics" and the meaning behind it!! Personally, I wanted to see major boycott on companies like AOL and Sprints. These corrupted brands should cease to exist!!!