I usually have to wash my mouth out after saying "AOL" - but needs must in this case!
I'm trying to help an old (both in age and long-standing) friend of mine whose phone line is currently dead and who, consequently, has no internet connection.
His internet service is provided by AOL and he *believes* that they also supply his phone service. [It appears that he only pays one bill each month covering everything, by continuous credit card authority].
The phone line is *definitely* dead - I've checked it myself with a known good phone in the test socket. There's no dial tone, and no voltage between pins 2 and 5. [Openreach were doing something at a neighbouring house yesterday, and my hunch is that they inadvertently disconnected my friend at the same time.]
The problem is, how to report the fault . . . Clearly, to get OR to do anything, it has to be reported to my friend's phone provider - but he's not *absolutely* sure who that is. When you Google for reporting AOL phone faults, you get pointed at TalkTalk. Is it likely that AOL subcontracts the phone line part to TalkTalk - or do they manage it themselves?
Sadly, my friend has done everything on-line and can't find any printed evidence - with account numbers, etc - which will likely be required to report the fault. It seems likely to me that he will have received monthly bills by email which contain this information. But, as far as I can see, there are no emails stored locally on his PC - so I assume that they remain on the AOL server - which he can't access without being able to get on-line!!
This is where the AOL expertise come in. In order to look for emails containing the relevant information, is there any way in which I could access his AOL account from my PC, using my internet connection? What information would I need? Would I need to load any AOL software (which I would be very reluctant to do)? Failing that, if he brought his laptop to my house and if I connected it to my WiFi, would he be able to access his AOL account over my internet connection - or is it tied to his connection?
[Why the hell do people get themselves into this mess - having everything on-line with no off-line backup?!!]