Why I hate Yahoo, chapter 36
I have complained about Yahoo mail many times. About three years ago, I made the mistake of taking a Yahoo premium account — just to keep Yahoo from killing my account, which is its way of strongarming customers into paying. I canceled the account at least two years ago but just found it on my credit card bill. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the Philippines trying to cancel the account and get a refund. They refuse to refund. The best part is that I asked for the guy’s name — Joe — and said I was going to blog about this, which I think is only fair. He told me to stop “recording” the call or he would terminate it. They can record. We can’t. Shades of AOL. Their attitude is every bit as bad as Comcast or AOL. Compare and contrast with Google. Yahoo is the last old-style company. It treats its customers like prisoners. They think they can make money telling us what we cannot do. Google has killed them for good reason. I never go to Yahoo. In a word: Yahoo sucks.
Tags: yahoo, yahoosucks
December 9th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
No argument from me on this comment Jeff.
Now if only there were another provider for high speed internet besides Comcast in my area.
Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt
December 9th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
yahoo does indeed suck.
December 9th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
In April of 2004 Yahoo gave the Chinese government information it was not legally obliged to give about one of its users, Shi Tao, which resulted in a ten year sentence in a Chinese prison for this journalist. At that point, any doubt about the concern of this company for its customers should have evaporated completely in every mind. These people, in order to secure a better access to a market _without which_ they remain billionaires, will send a man to be tortured. What the hell else needs to happen? Good G-d, if Yahoo doesn’t care about Shi Tao’s life or their own souls, why in the world would they care about your refund?
December 9th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
“In a word: Yahoo sucks.”
Umm I counted two words but I digress. Agreed. They went from being the place to start your internet journey to a place holding no significance.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Two years ago I mistakenly registered several domain names with them. Each year I try to cancel the re-registration as they’re no longer needed, but I’m never able to find out how to cancel. They tell me they’re about to charge me, but not how to stop it. Nasty tactics.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
what a whiner. tell your credit card not to accept the charges and dispute any that you have already been charged. also, how did they “strongarm” you into paying for yahoo mail. I’ve had a free account for years and use it as my primary email.
http://www.golfnorwich.com/
December 9th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Just cry to your credit card company, tell them you knew nothing about these charges, they will get a refund for you.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:56 am
I had this problem with Yahoo four years ago. I registered for a trial membership on the college football radio program. I didn’t like it, so I canceled within the noted trial period.
Everything was fine until I saw a charge. I called and complained. The rep said that, unless I had an e-mail verifying the cancellation, he couldn’t help. Interesting, considering I never received one. But he agreed to cancel my account.
Next month, another charge. Only I’d canceled the account again on the website and received an e-mail this time. I faxed it to them as proof. They conceded that I’d canceled it and promised to return the $4.95.
Next month, no refund and another charge. I went through the same process again. They conceded and agreed to return my $9.90. (They wouldn’t agree to return the very first $4.95 they stole, which was enough to sour me on the company.) They refunded the final month’s charge immediately. Four years later, I’m still waiting for the second $4.95.
I haven’t used Yahoo since.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:48 am
The amusing thing is that calls they field over items like this often cost them more than the service they charged you for. Think about it–I’m sure it cost Yahoo more than $4,95 for you to talk to 2 different customer service reps.
For the record, I still use Yahoo email. It makes a great spam dumping ground. Any time I must give my email address out for something, I use my Yahoo address so that it doesn’t clutter up an Inbox I actually use.
Donald
December 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
It certainly cost them more than $4.95, which quickly became my intention. I called them so many times, asked to speak to supervisors at the end of the conversation, used long pauses, and so on. I knew I would get nowhere, but I paid for the hassle in advance, I might as well enjoy it.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Well, sure…Yahoo sucks. So does AOL. The thing is, NEVER PAY a company like this…do everything you can on their portal for FREE, exploit the HECK out of ‘em, and take their surveys to advise them on how to stop screwing up so badly.
Once you learn their limitations, and know how to work within their framework to accomplish what you want, they’re not so bad. Kind of like an old ‘Pocket Fisherman®’… If you need to cast out into deeper water, it’s as far away as a few keystrokes…
December 12th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Jim,
I tried that during a dispute I had years ago, and found you *can’t* get your credit card company to preemtively refuse charges from a business. You can get the charges removed later, but if they charge you the next month you have to do it all over.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
YAHOO STINKS!!!!! A BUNCH OF COMMIE PINKOS FROM CALIFORNIA!!! NOW TO CLOSE MY ACCOUNT………………..
January 1st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
You’re a cry baby Jeff. Stop whining.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Yahoo must have the worst customer service ever
It is impossible to find an email address for “the webmaster” or for “technical_problems”,
to indicate the problem I suddenly have now they revamped the mail site and are using Norton AV (another bad custumer unfriendly company, see wikipedia!)
For what its worth I leave the email I would like to send to Yahoo here
Hi
Please have a look why any kind of zip file is not passing thru the Norton AV engine
1) I cannot send my zip files, because Norton AV says they are infected but I can send the
contained files separately; I am using a Linux machine to zip the files so it is highly unlikely
they are really infected
ic_rel.18.06.2008.001.zip (241KB) Virus threat detected. The virus could not be cleaned. Please run the virus scan on your machine. If I unzip this file I can send the separte files without complaints about infection
2) I cannot download a zip file sent to:
After Norton AV scanning I get:
“The file is not available for download. Please try later”
And despite multiple attempts I stillhave not got the file
Very disppointed with this, I presume this is a Norton AV problem
Fred