On March 10, 2008 at 5:45 PM, my car died in Downtown Cleveland on Prospect.  A minor annoyance, but I have AAA Plus RV, so I knew help was just a phone call away....Boy was I wrong.

My first call to the Cuyahoga County number lasted 18 Min.  That is how long it took the hold "advertisement" informing me of huge delays because of the weather to convince me that it was faster to go through aaa.com to enter in my Roadside Assistance Claim.  The problem with that is, aaa.com is not mobile web friendly, so the website did not parse correctly, nor did it look right.  This option is good if you happen to break down at home or near a Wi-Fi hotspot with your laptop, which must be quite common.  Although I have never been so lucky when my car dies.  After getting nowhere and wasting another 5 minutes on the website, I went back to the Cuyahoga County number. 32 Minutes into my second call, a female support representative answered.  And I broke a rule of consumerism and did not write down her name.  As she requested, I read her my membership # twice, my location, and gave her the make/model/color of my car.  At this point, she informed me that due to the weather, I would only be towed 10 miles.  I was upset, this stipulation is no where to be found on the AAA Road Service page and because I paid extra to have the plus in order to be towed up to 100 miles.  During my dispute, she informed me that it would take 3-5 hours for a tow truck to show up, then "maybe I should call someone else to help me", and the best yet "call another towing company and submit the bill to AAA".  After stating that I would like to get towed 10 miles towards home, a 24 mile journey, and then I will just place another service request.  This was followed with "You can't do that", and I was asked to be put on hold.  After 10 minutes of being on hold, the phone starting ringing, and kept ringing for another 15 minutes, until, in desperation, I gave up. While on hold, after finding out about the lack of service AAA would be providing, my wife beeped in on call waiting.  I informed her to have my father pick up a battery and start heading into Cleveland.  I clicked back over heard a few more minutes of hold music before the ringing mentioned above.  I attempted to call AAA again, and after 20 minutes I was clicking back and forth with call waiting as my father stopped at 2 stores to get a battery for my car.  But, on the last click over, I mis-clicked and ended the call to AAA without ever getting past the initial hold time. So, I called again, 35 minutes into the hold time, and this time I ended the call because the new battery was in and the car was running.  Fortunately, my diagnosis of a bad battery was correct, as it was already 8:30 PM and I still had not received a AAA number for my tow request. Luckily, I did have someone there to help me.  What upsets me is that I paid for a service to help me when I was in need, and AAA failed because it was inconvenient due to the weather and quantity of calls. I will not make the mistake of trusting AAA again. Update - I did call AAA and lodge a formal complaint and made mention of a perceived attitude from the representative, and was told they would review the recording.   I think it's great that they have the recording, because I will admit I was a bit steamed and may be wrong about her attitude.  In the end, I was offered $25 off a membership if I wished to renew, although I wanted nothing more than to voice my complaint.