Reader Andrew has been a Yahoo! email paid subscriber for 8 years. He also has a Yahoo! Small Business account for his website and has a paid Flickr account. He also participates in Yahoo! Answers. Sadly, Andrew said something on Yahoo! Answers that Yahoo! feels violated their TOS. The result? They deleted Andrew’s entire account, including his email, Flickr, and website hosting. He was given no warning. Yahoo! says his account was “suspended.” Andrew writes:
Now, lets have a quick look at that word – suspended. If a student get suspended from school that usually means they are back within a few days or a week or so. Yahoo!’s definition of suspended means removed permanently. This included all emails I had saved over the last eight years, my pre-paid Yahoo! Small Business Account, my FLICKR account, IM account – the lot. To top it off, and here is the sweet bit, even though I OWN the domain name transformertattoo.com I cannot move it to another hosting service because the contact email address, yup, you guessed it, was my deleted Yahoo! email address. “
Andrew says this is happening to quite a few people who say something untoward on Yahoo! answers (according to Andrew they claim he said something about harming animals, which he denies, but who knows.) Even if Andrew did say something out-of-line, should that affect other services he’s paid for? Andrew claims Yahoo! will not reinstate his account or refund his money. Read his letter inside.
Dear Consumerist,
I have been a big fan of your site for a while now, and, unfortunately, I have a story of my own to relate to you. It’s kind of tricky, so please, bear with me.
I have been a Yahoo! Email user for over eight years. For three of these years I have subscribed to their Mail Plus service at $19.99USD per year. I found that their email interface worked well and I became a heavy user of their other services such as Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Calendar, Yahoo! Answers, and FLICKR to name just a few.
Over the last three or so months, my friend and I decided to start up a website (http://transformertattoo.com), which is a gallery of user-submitted pictures of peoples tattoos. Being a regular Yahoo! user, I went for a Yahoo! Small Business Hosting Plan. I payed Yahoo! around $10USD to register the domain name and paid an up front monthly fee of $12USD.
The website was up and running within days and it was becoming quite a popular place. My mate and I were earning a few bucks every few days off it. No worries. It was a fanciful little hobby.
Over the last 3 months, I had become an active member on Yahoo! Answers, reaching Level 3 and sitting on around the 2000 point mark. This is all fair and well.
Earlier this week, I logged into my Yahoo! email to check messages, lo-and-behold, it rejected my user name and/or password. “Not to worry”, I thought and punched in the appropriate data again. I blinked twice. It rejected my user name and/or password again.
“Strewth!”, I muttered under my breath and jumped on over to Yahoo! Answers to see if I could log in there.
No such luck.
By now, I started to panic slightly. My palms started to sweat and my mind began racing. I couldn’t believe it. “Surely, they haven’t done the same with our website”, I reasoned. I slowly typed in the URL of the domain name that I owned, making sure the spelling was correct. I closed my eyes. I said a little prayer and hit ‘Enter’.Error 404
By now I was in shock.
Two things came to my mind. Perhaps their server was down. No, Yahoo! doesn’t let that happen. Then the second, more gut retching thought trailed through my mind. They have suspended my account.
Now, lets have a quick look at that word – suspended. If a student get suspended from school that usually means they are back within a few days or a week or so. Yahoo!’s definition of suspended means removed permanently. This included all emails I had saved over the last eight years, my pre-paid Yahoo! Small Business Account, my FLICKR account, IM account – the lot. To top it off, and here is the sweet bit, even though I OWN the domain name transformertattoo.com I cannot move it to another hosting service because the contact email address, yup, you guessed it, was my deleted Yahoo! email address.
I lobbed on over to a newly discovered site called ” Yahoo! Answers Violation Notice Board”. I had never heard of it. No wonder. This is where people can dispute accounts being closed. Let me tell you – there is a lot of people there who have also lodged complaints and grievances about their account being removed.
Example 1 – http://messages.answers.yahoo.com/answers/threadview?m=te&bn=SEA-ViolationsNotice&tid=135&mid=135&tof=2&so=E&frt=2#135
Example 2 -
http://messages.answers.yahoo.com/answers/threadview?m=te&bn=SEA-ViolationsNotice&tid=2280&mid=2280&tof=17&so=E&frt=2#2280
Example 3 -
http://messages.answers.yahoo.com/answers/threadview?m=te&bn=SEA-ViolationsNotice&tid=401&mid=401&tof=4&so=E&frt=2#401I posted a question there asking the same as many, many other people, “Why was my account deleted?”. I received a reply around 10 hours later confirming that my account had been “suspended” for breaking Yahoo!’s Terms of Service. They alleged that I was posting questions relating to harming of animals and people, which is absurd. As I mentioned I had put around three months of effort into gaining best answer and building my profile up to a Level 3 with 2,200 points. Why would I do anything like that? I am against harming people or animals.
Unlike, Yahoo! for example – on their video website at http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=155749 it seems to promote harm to animals. (Not that I endorse it).
I appealed to their sense of logic and reason stating that, as a paying customer (around USD$150 per year (FLICKR, Mail Plus, Yahoo! Small Business) – which is around $180 Australian dollars), that I had never posted content that promotes harm to humans or animals,
I am furious that Yahoo! assumes I posted content that broke their ambiguous and gray Terms of Service. Does Yahoo! deliberately set out to ruin their business or is it an out-of-touch gun-ho manager power-tripping? Even though I have paid in advance for another month of hosting, they refuse to either refund my money or create dialog with me resolve the issue satisfactorily. Most of the on-line accounts I have such as banking, YouTube and others have as a contact email address my now deleted Yahoo! account. They have the subtlety of a sledgehammer in the teeth.
And they were nominated for a Webby Award. Sheesh!
Consumerist, please have a look at my story, check the links in the story and enjoy your day!
A disgruntled ex-Yahoo! user
Andrew
We guess this is a warning to all users of Yahoo! Answers. It might be a good idea to have an alternate account for use in that section of the website. If what Andrew says is true, there seems to be no acceptable, customer-friendly way to appeal a “suspension,” and really no reason for said suspension to effect separate services a customer has paid (in full) for. We’ve asked Yahoo! for clarification of their policy and await their reply. —MEGHANN MARCO
More From Consumerist
-
Movie Theater Shows Kids How Different ‘Paranormal Activity 4′ Is From ‘Madagascar 3′
-
Yahoo To Pay $1.1 Billion Cash For Blogging Platform Tumblr, Maybe Not Ruin It
-
NYC Restaurant Selling $1K Pizza With Six Kinds Of Caviar On It
-
Yahoo! Announces Streamlined Makeover For Its Email Across Web & Mobile Platforms
-
Actual Paying Yahoo Customer Takes His Business Elsewhere
I had a Yahoo Answers account too…
I realized that Yahoo is like a dictatorship.. If you pay them a load of money a year, they let you slip on a few things… and all of the people that have the free accounts, they are not afraid to delete it just for fun…
I had recieved four or five violations in the Religion and Spirituality section expressing my views… A couple of christians going around report me, and then I get the violation… I did not dis anyones religion or anything… I just stated my own opinions…
Later I recieved a violation for something that I said, In fact I kinda agree with why they suspended my account…
There was a lady that posted a question about tightening the Vaginal walls… And yahoo isnt a doctoral site.. So I posted this…
“Stab it vigorously for about an hour with a knife, and if that doesnt work, get off Yahoo, and see a gynecologist…”
Of course I was a bit sarcastic, but It was a stupid question in my views… People post questions like, “My mom died, and I put her in the closet, should I call 911?” or “I cant breath, what should I do?”
And in my opinion, I think that smart-A questions deserve Smart-A answers…
So I see why they deleted me, but my problem was that everytime I asked them why I got a violation, I never got an email or response…
Yahoo is like communism, if you have friends in high places, you are fine, otherwise, one slip up will get you out…
I had my myspace account, among about ten-twenty other websites that I subscribe to and now I dont know what they all are, I lost all the password verification letters, and I no longer have any of my important emails, I had an addressbook full, and I used to send stuff to myself, If I thought it was something I wanted to remember, so I could check it later… And now all of about 4 yrs work is gone… I asked them nicely, that even if they did delete my account, that there was probably a reason, but if at all possibility could I have any of the information that was in the account…
no reply whatsoever…
So I made a new one, and now I also have two other accounts, and I made sure not to put an alternative email, or any affiliations, that way if they decide to cut me off again, they dont have but one that they can ruin…
I too had reached level 3, I had a few thousand points saved up, and I thought nothing could be worse, but it happened…
I had my yahoo account for 8 years. Over the years I had added quite a number of photos to my yahoo photos account, and quite a number of web pages at geocities. It wasn’t until late last year that I found Yahoo Answers. I became quite active (level 5) in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered subject category.
Yahoo is mysterious and can’t tell me what part of the Yahoo! Terms of Service I violated and they only tell me to read it. Finally, after reading the Terms of Service for geocities, I realized that I had been breaking a rule for quite a while, and didn’t know it. Why can’t they tell me about my indiscretion so I can make necessary changes? For the life of me I can’t imagine anything I did that is worth deleting an 8 year account! I made a mistake, and told them I am willing to correct it. What’s the matter? They coldly stand by the Yahoo! Terms Of Service.
I believe what attracted Yahoo! to my account was some activity in Yahoo! Answers LGBT Category. I would answer someones question, then in the sources box, I put a link to one of my sound files as an added fun thing that I do. It was to a vintage radio commercial for Ipana Toothpaste. They automatically thought it as spam, then noticed it was to my geocities web page.
I explained to them that technically it wasn’t spam, since it wasn’t a product that does not exists today, and it was my “humor”. They still will not listen to me and again coldly say “If you continue to use Yahoo! Products, then read the Terms Of Service”.
So why is Yahoo! not flexible to someone who has made an honest mistake? Why is Yahoo so quickly willing to delete and get rid of a customer of 8 years? I’m begining to think that Yahoo!
Some advise: If you use more than one Yahoo! Service then have several accounts. Don’t use the same account for Yahoo! Answers that you use for Yahoo! Photos. I lost 8 years worth of uploading personal photos. In general, Yahoo! Answers attracts negitivity to you. If you are going to do Yahoo Answers, I reccomend creating one account especially for that only. The moral of my story: Don’t Put all your Eggs in One Basket. Or in this case one Yahoo! Basket!
What am I suposed to think when Yahoo is so evasive?… I’m not a bad guy… and I’m a paying customer! So what gives?
Om resonse to this thread, may I add that I was a Level 7 with over 33,000 points on Y!A when they quote-unquote supsended my account. No reason other than the vague TOS violation given. I felt my intellectual property was ripped off. Ironically, my answers are still there for Yahoo’s use, but I can’t access them through my non-existent account anymore. Something ought to be done to teach these cowards a lesson. I hope their stock tanks big time.
Yahoo acts like it is the “moral authority”. It’s “system” gives their “farmed-out-low-paying-jobs” free rein of Yahoo!’s TOS when they most likely don’t even know English that well. But, as Yahoo! will be the first to tell you, you “signed your life away” when you “agreed” to their very vague TOS! There’s way to many glitches in their “abuse” system that leaves good, normal people, their customers being mistreated.
I’m not even a part of “Yahoo Answers” and they deleted my account on 10/1/2007. I had the account for over NINE (9) YEARS. I was not given any notice whatsoever. I found out by being blocked at the login screen. I immediately tried to regain control of the account by requesting a password reset via my alternate email address, and I reached a page that said my account was scheduled to be deleted. I contested the “deletion process” via email, which i DO NOT recommend. I received emails from Agnes, Grace, Brooke, Emma, Cyrus, and Sherry. And of course: “Member Services.” And six days later, my account was re-opened, 10/7/2007. I quickly forwarded as many valuable emails as I could to my other address. By evening, I had about 900 emails left to root through. The next morning, 10/8/2007, I was still able to access the account and I was getting emails from Yahoo saying, “We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused,” and “Please fill out our survey to tell us how we handled the problem,” and “We are glad this problem has been resolved.” Then at about 3:05 PM, I received a very spooky email at the alternate address stating, “Account Termination” in the header. And in the body of the email, it read, “per your request” and “approximately 90 days.”
I was ANGRY. I replied back asap stating I DID NOT MAKE ANY SUCH REQUEST, and to NOT DELETE MY ACCOUNT.
So I got on the phone with Yahoo after work. Their customer service number is not 24 hours, but here is the number: 866-562-7219. I spoke to a guy named Andrew. He was able to get me back into my account, by about 7:00 PM – I was given a case number to reference the call and the call was ended. But by that time, the 900+ remaining emails in the account were GONE. GONE. I tried to call back, but the support office was closed.
So I called the next day, 10/9/2007. I spoke to Joseph. Joseph actually got around to saying, “Based on the information you are telling me it sounds like somebody has broken into your account.” He asked, “Do you know anybody that has a grudge against you?” He also said my yahoo ID was so unique and “cool” looking that perhaps a hacker was paid by a person that coveted the ID. WHAT A JOKE. My user ID was literally constructed as two words like so: mikeOReric@yahoo – because word #1 was taken and word #2 was also taken at the time i created the ID – BACK IN 1998.
Joseph posted his notes with the same case number and was going to transfer me to his supervisor, but he dropped the call because maybe he doesn’t know how to transfer calls. I called back and spoke to Katrina. I referenced my case number and I told her enough to get her up to speed and requested to be transferred to a supervisor again. She transferred me to Raymond. Raymond provided me with a new case number to reference him by. What I learned from Raymond was that “It is Yahoo’s policy not to delete any emails in any account.” So that my account was reactivated but all of the remaining 900 emails were deleted should’ve been extra spooky. I also learned that “Once emails are ‘deleted’ and subsequently ‘deleted from the trash’ (recycle bin), Yahoo is not able to retrieve them again.”
Now, I had inadvertently signed up for Yahoo-Music-Unlimited back in August 2007, only because I had been with MusicMatch since 2000, and Yahoo bought MusicMatch. So I was “converted” over to Yahoo-Music and subsequently given a trial membership for Y-Music-Unlimited. I NEVER bothered to test it out. I forgot all about the service. (Sound like AOL to anybody?) So I was annoyed to see $71.88 charged to my bank account. Per the Music Unlimited TOS, fees are not refunded. However, since my account was no longer “secure” because Joseph and Raymond agreed that my account must have been “compromised” I decided I needed a refund for the amount of $71.88. Raymond had to transfer me over to Yahoo Billing. It was there that I spoke to Louise. I was given a new case number. Louise did not want to refund my money, so I spoke to her supervisor, Summer. I received another new case number. Summer put me on hold for a while and then set up the dialogue this way: “Are you planning on using your account ever again?” My answer was “No.” She replied with “Well, I must say that the service is ‘not refundable’….” To which I screamed into the phone: “THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU ASK ME IF I WAS GOING TO USE MY ACCOUNT EVER AGAIN??? Where are you going with this?”
In the end, Summer did say that I would be receiving a refund for the full amount in 3 to 5 business days. Whether or not that actually happens, I’ll have to wait and see.
After reading what I have read on Consumerist.com, I do not believe that my account was broken into my some enemy of mine, or some friend-turned-enemy, or stranger. Either somebody at Yahoo spilled coffee on the wrong server or something like that, or somebody at Yahoo decided I breached the TOS in some “way” they can’t talk about, and wanted to go to great lengths to delete my account and cover up the fact that the account was deleted internally, by Yahoo themselves. I can’t prove it, but on the other hand, they can’t prove to me that I was hacked unless they can tell me who the hacker is.
A real email solution is to buy a cheap domain name you don’t care about, and an annual hosting service, and set up “Outlook” or something like that. At least if your hosting service goes down, you still have your stuff on your computer. “Free,” web-based email isn’t trustworthy.