I have the same problem. Were you ever able to figure it out?
No, and I do have an update. My first aol account still has spam settings and the Exclusive Blocker. The second one does not.
However, the two new ones got their spam settings back. That's the good news. The bad news is that the old options are gone. No more Exclusive Blocker. Only the option to block a specific email address. And I don't know if it's blocked at the server or goes to the spam folder. Shame on AOL for making this change.
So far, the only webmails that I know of that have an Exclusive Blocker and the option to block at the server are Safe-Mail.com and inbox.com.
Inbox.com is no longer free, but worse: they aren't taking any new subscribers.
Safe-Mail can block at the server via preferences>mail control. I've signed up.
Keep in mind that an Exclusive Blocker allows mail only from Contacts or addresses that you specify. You can't get mail from people that aren't in Contacts.
To get mail from old friends looking for you on social media like Facebook, alias addresses from gmx.com and mail.com are best. These addresses are as permanent or temporary as the user wants to make them. Stopping a woodpecker-type spammer is as simple as deleting the alias address.
Woodpeckers are the ones that keep changing their return address to foil traditional blockers. The rest honor the unsubscribe link. If they don't, delete the alias. If you otherwise like doing business with the merchant that sold your address, move them from the alias to the webmail that has the Exclusive Blocker.
Woodpeckers are 99.9999% of the problem. Nail the woodpecker and we've nailed our problem. Good luck!