It might be a hoax. A bunch of friends have said they're getting messages from "AlM Messenger Service" (that's a lowercase L, not an uppercase I in AIM) tonight.

That happened to me too. I couldn't log in to netscape.net either and couldn't find any way to get help. I finally gave up and made a new account.

Good to read that this is not only happenign to me!

I receive the message: Your sign on has been blocked.
Also having sent the password to me ends in an error message

The Intelligence Reform Bill.

Happened to me, too, Joi. I have an AIM account that I use for office hours with students, and suddenly I can't login to it--I get a message that it's been blocked from signing in.

Hopefully you'll get an answer here--I can't find anywhere on the AIM web site that tells me how I can get it unblocked, or even find out why it was blocked to begin with. :(

I too have been horribly annoyed by this. I contacted AOL technical support and here is their reply:

Dear Byrne,

I understand from your recent e-mail that you are having difficulties with the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service.

This is a temporary problem with the AIM service and should be resolved shortly.

If you continue to have problems, please exit AIM and reboot your computer. After your computer has restarted, please try logging on again.

If you continue to experience problems with the service, please write back with the time and date each error occurred. Please be sure to send the exact error message you received.

This information will allow me to track down the problem quicker and get the issue resolved faster.

If you need assistance through telephone, you may call us at our toll-free number: 1-800-827-6364. Calling early in the day usually reduces the waiting time to speak to a consultant.

Nho D.
AOL Customer Care Consultant

AOL Help is an electronic "Help Manual" that you can use to find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about AOL. Please visit AOL Keyword: Help or go to this site: http://help.channels.aol.com

----------original message----------
From: byrne@majordojo.com
To: webmaster@aol.com

Name: Byrne Reese

Message: I am using AIM, but for some reason my account is suspended and I am no longer able to IM. My am not under 13. I am not an AOL customer. And I have not violated to ToU as far as I know. How can I possibly reactivate my account?

Here's the reason why:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1738245,00.asp

Cool Cours. Thanks! They should start sending trackbacks when they link. ;-)

Seem like I am been locked out too.

Two of my account names didn't work either. I got this message saying they were blocked. I clicked on the more information page and they said my account was blocked for a number of reasons. One reason was that they don't allow people 13 and younger to use IM, but if you're older you can reset your account. I clicked on that link and signed into my account again, then tried AIM and it worked!

According to the article they are working on it. I would assume they will have things fixed soon.

This happened to my account in October but now, I wonder if my initial suspicion (that AOL terminated our accounts at textamerica.com for commercial use) was correct. Is this solely a December issue or does it go back into October?

I just wanted to chime in and add that I have a number of IM accounts cancelled. I am glad to hear that it wasn't just me.

If anyone has a direct e-mail address or phone number with extention for anyone at AOL that can help please let me know. Their tech support won't even address the issue of my SN that I can't get back on... Please let me know, thanks.

hmm... if AOL deleted everyone's account, maybe they would switch to MSN.

Google really ought to put together an IM service.

(my AIM account also blocked)

Grrr... AOL is slowly bleeding at the neck. It is only time now.

</Brian>

I got this in my inbox. Do you know anything about it? The URL in there doesnt work, and I didnt do anything abnormal with my account... It looks very sketchy... "that" has a space in it, and there's some anti-spam asterisk at the end... Anyone else get this?

From: AOL Instant Messenger [mailto:newman@newman.newman-grt.oscar.aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 9:08 AM
To: ______EMAIL_ADDRESS________
Subject: AIM Account suspended!

AIM User,

We have detected that the AIM Screen Name ____SCREEN_NAME______ associated with this email address has been used in a way tha t violates the terms and conditions of the AOL Instant Messenger service. Because of these violations, AOL has suspended the use of this screen name. If you believe that this suspension has occurred in error, please fill out the form located at www.aim.com/suspended_accout. By providing accurate information, you will enable us to properly investigate the situation.

Sincerely,

The AOL InstantMessenger Team*

*Please note this e-mail is not a commercial e-mail and is intended only to provide official notice about an AOL Instant Messenger account identified with this e-mail address.

just came here from the eweek article..

it happened to me too!

I also fell victim to this. I guess I have the same concerns as the others: how will I know it is fixed, are they going to know I am affected without me telling them, are my buddy lists going to survive?

Still nothing posted on the AIM.com page about this either.

In stereotypical AOL style let me add a "me too". I tired to follow the link Alex provided above but it did not work for me, even if I corrected the spelling. Anyone have the correct link?

AOL dropped me this week as well...Just brutal.

Our whole lab at ibiblio.org dug through my computer to find the bug or fix for it. I eventually started up a new IM handle that will actually be better for me in the long run.

For you astrologers...Perfect example of Mercury retrograde...;)

Thanks for the article in eWeek. Explains it, but let's see if I get my old handle back.

Peace,
BD

Isn't using AOL anything a curse anymore?

Yep, happened to 2 out of my 4 names. Happened to most of my friends, too...as many as 5 out of 6 names. I'm not sure the total percentage of users affected (right now it's looking like maybe 25% or 30%) but it's definitely not a "small number" as the AOL representative claimed in the eWeek article.
It's just amazing that they haven't even put it up on the AIM.com site.

The problem appears to be growing. I have two accounts. Two days ago, one account became inaccessible. Just this afternoon (Friday, December 10), the second account also became inaccessible.

Note also the growing number and content of the comments on the eweek article site.

Well, these things tend to look bigger than they are percentage-wise because people only post when they have problems. I just tried two AIM accounts - mine, and my wife's - and neither has a problem.

I was extrememly frustrated with Aim. It said that "my name was blocked" ...... luckily my friend showed me that link to the eweek news. Thank god, because I called AOL and they didn't know anything about it and couldn't help me at all.

Doesnt matter if it was small percentage wise - the fact that there is no support number or email address that would even look into the issue is just not acceptable.
This affected my netscape.net address for over 2 weeks and contacting every available support number / email (even the pay ones!!) no one would even look into the issue.
Got to say if I was American the words 'class suit' would come to mind...

I also have lost access to one of my aim accounts.\

"Sign on blocked click info for more details"
url of that page is http://www.aim.com/errors/SUSPENDED_n.adp?ccode=us&lang=en

Hope they have this backup by Monday. Looks like a lot of people are down to me

yea....i also got that error....i heard they will reactivate the accounts that were banned by monday...HOPEFULLY.

Had exactly the same problem with my account (an account that I've had for a fair few years now) and similarly, could not find a contact email address.

I 'spoke' to someone via AOL's Live Chat [http://www.aol.com/support/livehelp.adp] and was told that I could contact them directly via AIMSUPPORT@AOL.COM, so I sent them an email on Thursday (9th Dec). I've not as yet received any reply - I thought that might be because I'm not an AOL customer just an AIM user, but after reading other responses/articles it just looks like their support is simply very poor...

Anyway, at least now I know it's not just me :)

Yeah my account was blocked recently...
AOL is aware of the situation and say that they should have a fix by Monday.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1738308,00.asp

Only moments after detecting that I was not the only one having this problem (thought this was a client/os-specific problem, since I'm neither using AIM client software, nor Win* platform), my account auto-magically reactivated itself :-)

Can't test it at the moment though, since no buddy yet available (again).

Rather strange thing -- I'm considering deactivating my account myself and tell everybody about it, to avoid this happening again. My buddies must have thought me being deaf or dead!

Two of my accounts have been randomly suspended, too... since last Wednesday! I have a few very important messages with my Netscape e-mail account but, because my AIM screennames aren't working, cannot access them. It is very frustrating and I have decided that, once everything is resolved (soon, hopefully), I am going to open an IM/e-mail account with another service; AIM is not reliable! Anyway, glad to know that I'm not in this alone. Good luck with your accounts, everybody!

My account was also banded I hope to get it back soon

Thank God I found this site! I’ve been going crazy all day trying to figure out what was going on. I hadn’t logged in for a couple days (a rarity for me) and when I tried to login this afternoon, I got an error saying “suspended account.” I went to aim.com but all I found was a faq page that said accounts get suspended due to age requirements or ToS violations. I was baffled because all I’d used the account for was chatting, I hadn’t violated any rules, and I hadn’t suddenly decided to change my age. I tried to contact someone about it, but I couldn’t find any contact information on AIM’s web page. I finally found the phone number for AOL’s support services, but it was a member’s only number. Luckily, I had signed up for a free trial a few days before and was able to use that account information to jump through the hurdles thrown at me by the annoying automated system. When I was finally able to talk to an actual human being, they guy told me that he couldn’t help me because AOL and AIM were separate services. He said he’d transfer me to AIM’s support service, but when the next agent answered, I got some annoying woman asking me if I’d like to try an AOL free trial. I explained that I already had one and was just trying to get information about my suspended AIM account, and she told me that she didn’t have any connection to AIM and that she’d never even used the service. She then launched into a sales pitch to try and sell me upgrades for my trail account. Eventually after politely listening to her sales pitch, she transferred me to someone else who wanted to sign me up for some free trial thing with a family tree site or something. Finally, I told the guy that I didn’t want anything and that I’d only called to get help and got a sales pitch instead. With that, he ended the call less than enthusiastically and I hung up. Seemingly defeated, I took to surfing the net again, in hopes that I might find a way to contact AIM and that’s when I found this site and an explanation to all this madness. I’m so glad I finally know what’s going on. I’m really annoyed though that AOL didn’t help me when I called them and that they failed to address such a major glitch. Their actions don’t seem very trustworthy to me and you all can bet that I’m canceling that trial. No way would I want to do any business with a company that has such poor standards of customer service. I just hope I can get my buddy list back. I’ll have to message everyone I know and tell them I’m switching to Yahoo…

damn i was scared my name was gone for good, i thought i did something wrong or something just glad its coming back tomorrow

Yea, my account was "banned" too. The article said it would be fixed by monday, and if its not I'm going to be very angry. What makes it even worse is I paid for AIM for my palm that day and thought that there was something wrong with my network that i couldn't sign on.

Me too. I am blocked and I want to know what is going on and why I can't sign on to my account!!

looks like im not the only one who cant sign in to AIM. whatever is wrong i hope they fix it soon.

it's Monday and my account is still not working!

Does anyone have any updates on this that they can share?

For those of you thinking about switching services, take a look at Jabber. It is an open-source protocol, so they are never going to deactivate your account. AIM has had this problem, and Yahoo recently changed their protocol to thwart all non-yahoo clients. MSN, I think, still deactivates their accounts after only a month of disuse.

my account is STILL not working, and it's Monday.

when do we get our accounts back????

My account isn't back yet, and I can't even open a new one. It says it can't connect to AIM's server. What's the deal. Is there anywhere we can all write to and force AOL to make a news release?

My account has been suspended too. It has happened to my friends, as well as myself. It even says that my password is incorrect, but refuses to send a reminder to my account! This is the most frustrating and annoying nusiance ive had to put up with in months! And the lack of contact info. on the aim.com site is not a big help either. Will they be able to give us our account back, with our buddy list intact?

omg!!! its monday and not in the morning mondays almost over and this better b fixed or else...i donno but im getting pissed

I was my account back. I still have my password saved and it will not let me log in still Sign in Blocked. It has ben down for a few days now and Hope it comes back soon I have another aol account but it's not my primary one. It refuses to send me email reminder for my password also and does not let be re check the age thing becuase it says my password is incorect.

I wany my other Aim name back and will do anything to get it back.

Its monday night and nothing has happened... did anyone get their account reactivated because i haven't.

this is such crap....its monday night and its still not working...

Monday it´s over and I can´t login to my suspended account. Does anybody know why the only place where you can find some information about this problem is eweek.com?

Tuesday morning, i have all my accounts back but two(my main ones!) what gives? Why is AOL so hush hush about this? Give us an update, something.

How odd the only place to get info on this is off the AIM/AOL site.

my screenname has been blocked for like 2 weeks now...and when i try and call a representative from AOL to figure out when i might be able to get it back...they tell me to go to AIM.com and that i can be helped there..but of course..i can't

Well, all mine are back. Best to you all to get yours.

ok its tuesday and my account is still blocked does anyone know why its not fixed yet?.... this sux the only reason y im keeping aim is cuz everyone else has it and there wouldnt be anyone to talk to on other things or else i would switch

ok, people who got heir accounts back already. Did you have to tell AOL that you were having problems, or did they just fix it? Mine isn't back up yet. Do I have to let AOL know that my SN is affected?

mine is still not back up. such bullshit. I have a feeling that its not coming back. I had my hopes up though.

hey i finaly got it to work and no i didnt have to tell aol anything it just finaly worked im so glad now hope your comes bak too

Mine isn´t working, hope that we all get our accounts back soon. Did you (the ones that have their accounts back) get any apology by email???

John. I think some people contacted AOL. I think others have just noticed it working again. It appears random as far as I can tell. Abel, I did not receive an apology personally. I think they just apologized on their website. They have not, as far as I know, apologized yet to the people who they weren't able to fix on Monday.

Finally It is working....

Well, it is now officially Wednesday night and still no AIM. Anyone else still not back up yet?

john, i still havent gotten mine...im pissed

Hey I'm from Germany and have the same problem. Still 90% of my names are down. Have anybody an idea, when the are finished with reactivation, I want my names back.

mine's still down. wtf.

yep me too heather....lets have sex while we wait :o

i go on aim all the time. I forget my password but i have my 2 usernames linked but i cant do anything with the 1. my email adress changed. i have my other sn updated. but is there anyway to find out my other sn's password.

ahh finally! i fixed my sn....i was on my sidekick and my sn went off....i tried my password 10 times and it didnt work so i checked my mail and it said the same message bout being suspended....hmm i googled it and found this site and researched....i decided to click 'forgot password' and created a new password and tried it...it worked! my sn's back on and alive baby

hope this helps you all

Uh.. This just happened to me and at least one of my friends.

Started yesterday, Jan 18

Is this going to be a monthly AIM "fuck off" ritual?

I've heard from others that leads me to believe that it's not just me. Maybe this is going to become a monthly random hosing issue. Maybe they need a swift kicking, but I'd think they'd learn their lesson the first time.

I have witnessed a total of 6 accounts of mine get suspended and/or blocked in the past month. The weird things is people's reports of this were in early December. Is this still going on? I lost 3 of these accounts yesterday.

Just happened to me about five days ago. I friggin' hate AOL.

I've had 20 colleagues who have their passwords reset every day. WTF is AOL doing? Anyone else having to frequeltny reset aol passwords?

My screenname gets locked every day causing me to reset the password.
I suspect this is because I am using Miranda and not the native AOL client that takes half of the screen and pushes the nasty ads.
AOL sucks! Can't wait to see these loosers go out of business.

thank god, i thought i was crazy. I have also been having my password reset daily for weeks, and today it finally decided that my account was "suspended" and quit sending me the password.

ya i called aol noboyd will help . my email was reset to an email address from 1999 when i was back in college.

this is insane. they are like makea new name. im like i cant that name was associated with my business. im on the verge of suing aol. this is insane!!!!!!

ya i called aol noboyd will help . my email was reset to an email address from 1999 when i was back in college.

this is insane. they are like makea new name. im like i cant that name was associated with my business. im on the verge of suing aol. this is insane!!!!!!

I have been blocked. How long is this going to go on ? Its flippin March.

Yeah sue aol. This is BS!!! I have lost TWO screen names to this!

my aol s/n is working fine on aol but now all of a sudden its not working for aim but its stilll working for aol. i called aol they transfered me to 3 different numbers and they were about to send me to a fourth but i told him i had already talked to the customer support line he was sending me to. they are no help and half of them need to take some speaking classes or aol needs to hire somebody that speaks clearly and doesnt talk like they just came to america.

Well its good to see i am not alone in a march raid... I just got suspended about an hour ago, called AOL only to deal with their idiot tech support. Let us pray they just give up, die, and Google takes over.

Heh, I just got cut off in mid-chat with a friend who I haven't been able to catch online for two weeks. I check my inbox, SUSPENDED!

This is the second time for me. The last one was a week and a half ago. In both cases I have reported that my account was suspended for no reason and the last time the password reset worked.

Not this time. Is AOL just trying to kill AIM?

It was working fine for me last night and I woke up to get the message "Sign on blocked". WTF! Any word on how long this is gonna take to fix. This is the only sn I use.

it just happened to me, too...i IM'd someone, and then AIM signed me off and when i tried to sign back on, i got the sign on block message. the link that it gives you 'for more information' takes me to AOL's homepage. i created a new screenname after trying for about 20 minutes and finally got on w/a new screenname, but i don't have my buddy list or any of my settings from the other acct. and of course i can't export them because i can't even get in w/that acct.

WTF????

ya clearly they dont wanna address fixing this problem so they are just going to ignore it. the only way i can see anyone getting their screen names back is by figuring out an exploit to crack into their accounts. this sucks ass!!! fucking aol.

I've been talking to a bunch of people, and randomly I get booted off with a message that you've all gotten in the past. I'm able to sign on any other screen name except the one I always use. I do not have the same buddy list elsewhere to get all the names back. Should I assume it will be fixed? I don't want to make a new screen name..

MY SN JUST GOT BANNED!!!! I WAS TALKING TO A FRIEND WHEN IT STOPPED WORKING.....NOW MY PHONE IS STILL LINKED TO IT BUT I CANT USE MY SN!!! WTF!!!!!

ARG..I to have fallen prey to this annoyance only I was signed on for ahwile this weekend and just today (Sunday)after I signed off it will not allow me to sign back on...

.....yeah this is cool.... mine just got blocked today. (sunday)

this is the 2nd time my SN has been blocked like this...it's BS and AOL/AIM totally blow. i just called an AOL support line and they said that AIM does not have a technical/customer support line. the only support system they have is via www.aim.com which sucks in a major way. also, let's verify what was stated in an earlier post about AOL's phone support speaking poor english! HELLOOOOO your job is to TALK to and assist people all day long...you'd think they would hire people who speak the GD language! grrr sorry so mad. i've had my SN now for 8 years and i'm afraid it's lost forever. i don't have my old computer that i loaded my buddy list onto. does anyone know how to retreive screen names from the hard drive? i was able to pull a few from the registry, but i'm missing way more. GAWD. okay, i'll stop...anyone had any luck getting their account back? AIM sux. the end.

I keep hearing that the number of affected people that had their screen names suspended was small. I just find it hard to believe. Who is defining small? Am I really just this fortunate to have my IM name dumped. My screen name is Atomite123 by the way...just in case someone that can do something about it is reading this. I've been using it for 10 years. People know me by that name...I'd almost just go ahead and legally change my name to Atomite123.

What does it take to get my account back?

Perplexed,
Adam Fite (once known as Atomite123)

Ok, my SN hasn't been banned....but I wanted to delete my buddy list and start over. Now there are NO screennames on my buddy list. When I try to add buddies, it says "One or more of the additions or modifications to your Buddy List were not able to be saved." Anyone have any problems with this???? It's pissin me off!

Anthony
uofoklahoma@netscape.net

My AOL/AIM sns have pretty much been shot down since last night. Twice I tried contacting AOL through the Live Technical Support and both times neither tech was helpful. The first time the guy told me to change my password and contact AIMSupport@aol.com. The second time the tech told me to look at the AIM website and ended the conversation before I could get another word in. Neither explained what the problem was or how to resolve it. Thankfully a friend linked me here so I can see I'm not the only one.

I just hope it resolves itself soon. I've already made a new account name for AIM, I'd just like to be able to transfer my buddy lists.

Sigh. I have the same problem, as of two hours ago? I've had this name for seriously 5 years. How do I get it back? I can't reach anyone and it won't let me into my aol mail either.
Why are they so bad at this?

im getting the same problem

damn

I had to linked screen names and both have been suspended. I don't know whats going on, but I'd really like to know. They sent me an e-mail saying I violated the terms of use .. ?!?! I don't know what to do. I'd really like to get my accounts back. Can anyone help ?

I was signed on to AIM when it went fruity and wouldn't allow me to send IMs. So I restarted and attempted to log back on when I recieved the error message that my SN had been blocked. I haven't broken any of the requirements. I'm wondering if this is perhaps the result of another mistake similar to the one in December. If so, will all my contacts be lost and how long will it take them to fix the error? Do I need to contact them to let them know of the error? As well, my e-mail (also through AOL) will not function. Are the two occurences related?

has anyone found a solution to this? friday night my screen name was randomly blocked from signing on, and of course calling AOL doesn't help because they tell me i'm not worth their time as i'm not a paying AOL customer, and emailing them does nothing. i want my screenname back.