Watch Your Mouth On Yahoo! Answers Or They'll Delete Your Email And Website
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,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 MARCOI 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
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
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Comments:
Well, Andrew, I might have suggested that you write a pointed letter to yahoo, cc'd to the FTC and the BBB.
However, suggesting that yahoo is pro-animal cruelty because one of their users posted a Korean duck-hunting video is a bit inflammatory.
Posting it on a very popular consumers website, using way too much personal info, is enough to keep you suspended.
I do feel some pity for you. You spent some cash. You followed your dreams. You gave some answers to some bunny killers and pissed off the bunny huggers. Then, you got suspended.
A letter carbon copied to the right people would typically open some doors. If that doesn't work, there's always small claims court. Just enough of a pain in the ass to get you either satisfaction, or a refund (plus court costs).
But, the important thing is to stay professional and focused on your issue. Do drag anyone else into it, and try to refrain from insinuating a pogrom of duck genocide, directed by Mr. Semel, Yang or Filo (even though it might be true). Staying professional is the only way to get any real, satisfying resolution.
Andrew, You should have just said you were "Helping that sheep across that fence"! :)
While this is ugly from every angle, it underscores the importance of always using your actual ISP address for truly important things like, say, domain contact information.
Funny, I asked Yahoo! to remove a person from a Fantasy sports league for using the *n* word and insulting people's sexual preference, and they did not even send a warning...Immus was fired for saying less. But you talk about harming an animal and they act quickly. Maybe Yahoo! and PETA are pals....
I've received warnings from Yahoo! on things I wouldn't think are necessarily inflammatory. I once described how good Rao's Marinara Sauce was in a comment section much like this by stating that you could go out for an italian dinner, absolutely hate it, come home and poop it out, pour Rao's over said poop and enjoy it this time. A lil gross? mayhaps, but inflammatory and a violation of TOS? Nah.
Anyway, I assumed one would have to get several warnings before being suspended unless you were going around using "nappy-headed" and "ho" in the same sentence.
Good riddance to Yahoo Answers.
I remember when it started up and it seemed like a interesting idea until I checked it out. I was horrified at the amount of "answers" that had completely erroneous information. I was also dismayed at the election system used for the "Best Answer" often left answers with good, accurate information overlooked. Worse, because of the popularity at the site, many of my searches for info in google will turn up "Ask Yahoo" pages with again, their sorry mistakes for answers.
Bah.
That's what you get for suggesting people celebrate Easter by crucifying bunnies :-p
@BillyShears: Unfortunately, using your ISP's email is no guarantee either. I remember when Comcast and AT&T @home merged, they eventually dropped the AT&T mail servers. So, if you were juser@home.com, and there was already a juser@comcast.com, you were now known as juser1@comcast.com.
Not to mention that, if you change ISPs, you need to remember to change *everything* that uses your ISP email, and you need to do it *after* signing up the new service but *before* canceling the old, since you'll need access to both accounts at once.
For the sake of this website....I hope his comment wasn't about the beloved cat....
I agree with the recommendations lincolnparadox makes. But the story illustrates one of the dangers of keeping all your eggs in one basket.
I'm also concerned that all of this happened without any fore-warning. By all means, block them from Yahoo Answers, but it does seem inappropriate to disable the entire account and all related paid services without any recourse.
During the whole "Flickr + yahoo = crap" debacle, I was told by a flickr representative that Flickr and yahoo accounts were "linked", but that if someone's yahoo account was suspended, their flickr account could still be used.
Apparantly, that's not the case. Flickr users, make sure you back up all your flickr photos in a safe location, like your hard drive.
Yahell has been known to be really sensitive about deleting things like individual accounts and groups if there's an ounce of 'indecency.' But still, this does seem rather much. I mean, couldn't' they send him an initial warning first? ("Your post here violated our terms and has been deleted. In the future, please pay attention to our rules...")
Actually from a personal perspective the worst part is that tie-in. As a recently lapsed "Pro" account from Flickr I wondered, as did many, what would the downsides of a Yahoo buy-out be (besides eventually forcing us to get a Yahoo email). Now we see. I was thinking about re-upping for Pro service just this last week. I've never had any real negative experiences with Yahoo but I don't like monolithic organizations with opaque TOS's. It reminds me of the early days of eBay, where questions were only relayed via email and the who's, how's and why's were only learned via experience. It's a disturbing reality, truly. I certainly think forums should have limits but those limits should be clear and well known and the ramifications for exceeding them should be transparent, as should the process for reaching resolution or member dismissal (suspension). This type of punitive response has no place in any customer-oriented, customer-friendly organization (i.e. ones that deserve our business). I guess Yahoo just wanted to take this opportunity to remind us that's just the type of organization it isn't.
Wow. I got my Answers (but not Flickr) account canceled when I asked how to make convincing fake poop.
I was a little addicted to Answers by then... but I eventually got another account canceled by (facetiously!) asking for good baby recipes.
Chances that Andrew said what they think he said...pretty good.
Chances they went about this incorrectly...even better.
He most likely said something that they thought was all for abusing animals, but there should be a warning. I also think canceling all of his accounts was way out of line. Just kick him off answers.
In the event that he never wrote anything that they think he wrote, isn't there some way for them to show what it was so that he can dispute it or so they can show they are right to kick him off?
@Jonathan Harford: I don't get it. What's so inexcusable about making fake poop? Surely it's more excusable than real poop, and even Yahoo execs must poop from time to time... Or does Jerry Yang have a big cork up his ass?
I had a similar wierd run in with Google Adsense. They send me a note that a news aggregating site I run had content that violated their TOS. Problem was: 1) these were all legitimate news stories from major news outlets listed here. 2) link they provided was to a category header listing over 200 stories. Which one did they mean? I sent them a note to find out. They didn't reply. I've sent 10 notes since, still no reply. So they accuse, don't provide the evidence and then burrow back into their hole. Monolithic, obtuse, opaque and definately not customer friendly. How organizations function like this, I'll never understand. They have the money to have a staff. Why can't they create a structure -- a system -- that will benefit those that help grease their corporate gears? We aren't all out to get them. Why are they hiding?
Here's the thing. If "misbehaving" on Y! Answers gets you cut from webhosting, messenger, Flickr, email, 360, Auctions, Personals, Classifieds, or any of the 100 services under the Yahoo umbrella, then does "misbehaving" under any of the others nuke you as well?
I'd bet that's a Hell Yes.
That's pretty spooky, especially considering how opaque Yahoo is when trying to contact them in a dialog to clear things up.
I remember losing a yahoo email acc't ages ago for unknown reasons. Gave up figuring why after realizing it was taking me longer to find someone to talk to at Yahoo to clear it up than it did to create a new email address.
That's why Yahoo is only good for throw-away services to me. And give them money? Are you insane?! Expect every day with Yahoo to be your last, plan accordingly and you'll do fine.
Seems like a bad way to run a business, though. No wonder their stock price is down. And everyone else is eating their lunch.
@mathew:
Like the book says, everybody poops.
Now about Yahoo Answers -- it looked kinda cool when I first saw it, but then I gave up on it because it didn't look like there were any controls on content. For example, I had a legit question about U.S. immigration law, so I typed that into the search field. I ended up wading through a lot of bigoted, ignorant, rhetorical questions, like "Why can't we just shoot the wetbacks instead of letting them suck up all our hard-earned tax money?"
So after that happened, I gave up on Yahoo Answers -- too much stupid crap and not enough useful information.
Ummmmmmmm...what else would you expect from Yahoo?
I'm an "answerer" on Yahoo! Q&A, but I think after this story I'm reluctant to go back there again.
For those looking for legitimate answers on Yahoo!, you're barking up the wrong tree. Keep in mind that this is a Q&A system where the questions can be asked by anyone as well as answered by anyone. Anyone can give false information, which is somewhat true of Wikipedia as well.
I know what it's like to try to get a hold of them though. Ironically I typed "Yahoo telephone" on their search field and got a few pages, one at the bottom being their normal answer. The number shown was 866-562-7219.
I dont know if 866-562-7219 is the actual number, you can try, but I have something better.
Here, if you do a whois on the domain yahoo.com you will get all a lot of information that will help you. Now, these are local california number, so you may be calling the ceo in his office, or an IT Admin, but I'm sure that these numbers are very high up, if they do work and are valid.
Here is the unformatted printout from the whois request, and good luck:
04/12/07 16:56:16 IP block 69.147.114.210
Trying 69.147.114.210 at ARIN
Trying 69.147.114 at ARIN
OrgName: Yahoo
OrgID: YHOO
Address: 701 First Ave
City: Sunnyvale
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94089
Country: US
NetRange: 69.147.64.0 - 69.147.127.255
CIDR: 69.147.64.0/18
NetName: A-YAHOO-US5
NetHandle: NET-69-147-64-0-1
Parent: NET-69-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS2.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS3.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS4.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS5.YAHOO.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2006-06-26
Updated: 2006-09-22
RAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
RAbuseName: Network Abuse
RAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300
RAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
RTechHandle: NA258-ARIN
RTechName: Netblock Admin
RTechPhone: +1-408-349-3300
RTechEmail: netblockadmin@yahoo-inc.com
OrgAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Network Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300
OrgAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
OrgTechHandle: NA258-ARIN
OrgTechName: Netblock Admin
OrgTechPhone: +1-408-349-3300
OrgTechEmail: netblockadmin@yahoo-inc.com
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-04-11 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
Ha, and then there's also the fact that Yahoo doesn't let me view some people's profiles because of "adult content."
I'm over 18, I swear! However, thanks to their poorly organized system, there's no possible way to fix this. It won't even let you view what they think your birthdate is.
And yes, Yahoo Answers is ridiculous. I always hear about the questionable reliability of Wikipedia's un-refereed content, but Yahoo Answers is far worse for that.
I don't even know where to begin. At least when Google cancels and adsense account, it's just that and not everything else?
Are the Yahoo Answers TOS linked to all the others??? No. It makes absolutely no sense. That's what happens when you have automated systems.
Let's not focus TOO much on the Y! Answers. Eviction from ANY Y! service means banishment from ALL Y! services (even if you're foolish enough to have given Yahoo your money). Whoa, that's dumb.
They're a publicly traded stock, so you can find lots of information on any financial site. I got the following from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=YHOO
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
United States - Map
Phone: 408-349-3300
Fax: 408-349-3301
Web Site: http://www.yahoo.com
KEY EXECUTIVES
Mr. Terry S. Semel , 63
Chairman of Board and Chief Exec. Officer $ 600.00K
Ms. Susan Decker , 44
Chief Financial Officer, Exec. VP of Fin. & Admin. and Head of Marketing Products Division-Advertiser & Publisher Group $ 1.50M
Mr. Farzad Nazem , 45
Chief Technology Officer and Exec. VP of Engineering and Site Operations $ 1.25M
Mr. Michael Callahan , 38
Sr. VP, Sec. and Gen. Counsel $ 525.00K
Mr. David Filo , 40
Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo! N/A N/A
Dear god, in the Example 3 link posted in the letter above, a guy's Yahoo email account (containing important emails he needs for a legal matter)was shut down because he posted an answer about "hacking a system". Yes, hacking computer networks is illegal. But wait, he was actually posting about hacking a Laser Tag system! You know, Laser Tag, that game where you strap on sensors and shoot at each other with laser guns?
Yeah, don't tell anyone how to play with a piece of electronic hardware they actually own, because Yahoo will shut your ass down. Sounds to me like some moron working there doesn't understand the difference between hacking a network and "hacking" something you own. Jeez.
Meghann and Ben-- please do your magic and pursue Yahoo for an answer on this; their response will determine whether or not I cancel my Flickr pro account with them.
I had my gregoryagogo@yahoo account since 1999. 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 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. Evidently you aren't supposed to post links to your geocities page from Yahoo Answers or any other message board. OK, Fine, then why can't they tell me about my indiscretion so I can make necessary changes? I asked them and they said "After re evaluating your case, Mr. May, we have decided not to reinstate your account"... 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.
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, and is willing to correct it? Could it be because I am Gay? Is Yahoo! discriminatory against gays? Are the "Hamsters" that run Yahoo! biased against gays, and are more ready to delete Gays accounts when they make little indiscretions and break the Yahoo! Terms of Service? Why is Yahoo so quickly willing to delete and get rid of a customer of 8 years? I'm begining to think that Yahoo! leans towards being anti-gay. What do you think?
A bit of 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!
This is from my Yahoo 360 Blog... 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?
I have my own bad stories about Yahoo Answers. While my account has not been suspended, I have received tons of violations from other members of which I was able to prove they were not against community guidelines, most of the time my responses were ignored. I leave my latest struggle down below
http://messages.answers.yahoo.com/answers/threadview?m=tm&...
Funny enough Yahoo did not even care to look at its own community guidelines before posting an answer. Look at my subject link, and view Don't #1
http://answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines.php
The moderator did not bother to even answer my question, which was clearly a request to speak with a Supervisor or someone in charge
"Otherwise violate the question and answer format"
Now I don't know exactly how much space I have left on here, but view Yahoo Terms of Service #6 Section J
http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html
J. interfere with or disrupt the Service
or servers or networks connected to the
Service, or disobey any requirements,
procedures, policies or regulations of
networks connected to the Service;
I had request a service be performed
which was to explain why my post was in
violation of the community guidelines
and explained why in the proper format
stated by Katie, and they deleted my request for a service (to have an appeal done, and to speak with a supervisor) which was also without notice. I've also been refused the request to speak with a supervisor 4 times now.
Ok, I didn't read all the comments so don't bite if I'm repeating. There were bits of advice about what services to use and how to split things between them etc., etc., etc.,
Here's my advice on email accounts:
1. Register your own domain name. You can do it for less than $10 these days.
2. Sign up for some really cheap hosting. You can find cheap domain hosting that will suffice for email for about $25/year.
3. Get a Gmail account. Google will act as a mirror for your mail. You simply forward your own domain-based address to your Google mail account. You can even setup Google mail to send as that address at no cost.
4 (optional) Use a POP mail client to download and send mail through the Google service and you have a local copy and a constant online backup for free!
Eitheway, if Google steals your mail, shuts down, or "suspends" your account, you can still use your email address without worry. Forward the address somewhere else... create another Gmail account etc.
And don't forget #5. ENJOY.
I'm a supposed moderator of a Yahoo Group, but it's on the wrong email address, the owner appears to be defunct, and I have tried to contact support to see what can be done about it. No response.
No response out of an action like that? What IS Yahoo doing?
Never found Y! answers helpful.
And Y! mail? That's my email address for things where I'm not sure whether it's going to get sold to spammers or not.
If he was in China, he would be in jail by now.
I'm constantly disappointed by Yahoo!
The only saving grace is the lack of connection between their "lame" services and del.icio.us
I'm going to export my bookmarks just in case.
This makes me really sad. I'm a devoted yahoo im user (best interface of any im program, as far as I'm concerned) and have a yahoo email account I've used as my primary email for about 8 years. I guess I'm glad I never got into yahoo answers...
Oh Yahoo. Shall I compare thee to a festering pile of garbage? Thou art too stinky and too foul. How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
* Yahoo answers gets worse comments than youtube.
* The yahoo email that I was forced to sign up for by flickr and have never ever used gets more spam than the address that has been on my usenet sig for 10 years.
* Your search engine still sucks, and it ruins Opera Mobile.
* Oh yeah, that turning over chinese dissidents to be tortured thing. Can't forget about that one.
* Every company you buy and mess with dies. Flickr and del.icio.us are going the way of geocities and blo.gs.
* @yahoo.com = @aol.com I'd throw a resume with that on it in the trash, too.
Hey, Ben -
Promise to keep up a "x days of no response from Yahoo" ticker if, say, a week passes with no response. We've seen their a tad irresponsive to paying, involved, formerly loyal customers. It'd be interesting to see if anyone can penetrate the impervious shield that Yahoo erects around themselves.
@Jonathan Harford: Fake poop? That reminds me of a Dave Barry article from a few years ago as he watched an engineer try to make a better toilet. The engineer used fermented bean curd in a "secret recipe" to simulate #2's, or as Barry called them, "Geraldos". i found a copy of the article here.
Since i read that article some years ago, "Geraldo", "fermented bean curd" and "poo" are inextricably linked synaptically in my head. i can only hope that Mr. Barry's words can provide the same service for others.
If that really is the case, then I'm quite happy to lend you some of my current hosting, No ads, nothing like that. Not sure how much you get with Yahoo! but I'll try and give you an acceptable amount. With FTP, PHP, Curl, SSH, etc, etc.
If you would like my offer, then send me an email: - daniel.neville@gmail.com
Hi, this happened to me also late last year.
I've been with them since 1996! I used to have paid hosting for my personal website with them for 3-4 years maybe. I was just joking around on the site & I may have pissed off some close minded liberals.
I lost my email account, flikr account, yahoo Notes & yahoo Briefcase. I couldn't even access my email to download the important stuff. I had several domains registered to my yahoo account..so it was a hassle to get that changed to a new email address.
So, yes beware..don't post your opinions on Yahoo. If they disagree with your opinions..the liberals will ban you.
What can force a monolithic organization like Yahoo to notice it squashed a little ant for no good reason? Mass action, public shame.
Yahoo has NOTHING that you can't find somewhere else. Competition is fierce. Nothing is stopping any of you from banning Yahoo.
But yet, we all let this shit happen, thinking it won't happen to us, and so they get away with it. There is no accountability because nobody holds them accountable. We simply can't be bothered.
I dropped Yahoo and MSN/Hotmail for Google and my own hosting companies...because of stuff like this Spend the time to try other services, stop feeding the trolls.
I cant believe you posted this entire article without fact-checking his original posted text.
He doesn't even offer it.
Obviously there is more to this story then he wants us to know. CHECK YOUR FACTS CONSUMERIST.
Andrew,
You CAN move your domain name to another domain name registration service provider. Log into your control panel for your domain name through Yahoo! small business domain management and change your administrative contact email address to a valid email address.
Don't remember your login information? Contact Yahoo! and ask them to update your administrative contact email address. They will ask you for your security "secret question". Answer this correctly and they have to update it for you.
Don't remember the answer to your secret question? You can still request them to mail you your username and password to the mailing address that you provided to them on signup.
No longer live there? Request the offline form to update your contact information. You will need to provide proof of your identity, likely involving a photocopy of government issue photo ID. They will probably also slap you with a service charge for this option.
Hello -
I am the product manager responsible for Yahoo Answers and hope to have an opportunity to respond to this thread.
-tomi
In regard to Andrew's situation as well as many other's I'm sure... I work for Verizon in one of their FiOS Fiber Solution Centers. At least a few times a week I am contacted in regard to an option that allows Verizon FiOS customers to choose to get MSN Premium svc's -OR- you guessed it! Yahoo! Portal services.
Of course I can not speak on behalf of Verizon when I say this, but I think I'll recommend users in any direction other than Yahoo from today forward. Yahoo! seems to treat our customer's "not so friendly" by constantly missing committment deadlines to have "portal partnered" accounts (specifically email) in regard to repair issues. After reading this I've decided I'm sick of having to take the bullet for lacking customer service when I work for a company that treats me very well and we honestly do care about our customer's internet troubles. And I feel Yahoo just doesn't step up to the plate when it comes to customer service. I at first thought it was just because these were not their direct accounts. But not warning a customer of a violation (if such existed) tells me I was wrong to have thought that. Clearly Yahoo! likes to bite the hands that feed them (I mean their direct customers, not Verizon when I say this.)
I obviously can not agree with Yahoo! or Andrew in this case because who knows whats going on in that "gray" matter. But I did want to voice the above in regard to Yahoo!
- Anonymous
Next time you Google.
hi all,
i have a same disaster as andrew, my yahoo mail ac was deactivated without any reason i think, i cant log in with my id and password. after trying to retrieve my password, message came off as this account has been deactivated?? What a bad disaster i came across.
Have log in to contact them, no news yet, dont will take how long before i can get the final answer from them. have send in many mails now.
Is been a nightmare for me now, i have lost all my contact, important info, messages, i am like a lost man now, what a day. As for the yahoo Answer, i have been to level 2, and have awarded many times for the best answer!! Still my yahoo account was suspended atleast for this moment before the actual answer to me. Hopefully it is not that """Suspended"""
Exactly the same thing happened to me. Went to logon, nothing, no record of my password, eventually found my account with 5 years worth of emails, my yahoo 360 account with my blog and all my answers account with 100s of answers totally deleted and any reference that I ever existed on Yahoo completely obliterated.
They gave me no warning at all and I have never had a reason given except that my account is 'not eligible for reinstatement'. I have no idea why they did this or what I was meant to have posted that could have caused it. I literally dont know and they wont tell me.
Yahoo seem to want to drive people away, if you look on the violation forum there are more people springing up every day whove had their accounts deleted and have no idea why except that some over zealous autocrat in Yahoo has decided to erase them.
I wouldnt touch Yahoo with a pole now and Ill make sure anyone with a Yahoo address knows about what theyre doing.
Yep. Yahoo! decided to delete the account that is the contact for valuable college stuff and other school work. They told me I "offered another user a STD". That is craziness. My question was "If someone had AIDS, would you ever consider being intimate with them? Even if you knew them for years and were really close?" I was simply curious. That does not merit banning an email account and I did not "offer" anyone a disease. There response was the same "No!" as other users have posted. I did nothing wrong on my email or other Yahoo! services, I merely got someone who didn't like my question decide I shouldn't be allowed to email because of my simple question. No warnings were given either. Thanks for letting me rant.
Google found themselves a new #1 fan!
That is harsh.
While I'm about to spew some advice on the guy, I think I may need to heed it also (though I am a Google-man). Always, always have two separate e-mail accounts and split your services between them. That way, if Yahoo! or Google ever decide to "suspend" your account, you only lose half of your services and can get them transferred a tad bit more easily.
I feel for ya Andrew, especially because of flickr. If anything happened to my (Pro) flickr account, I'd die.
P.S. Consumerist, in both cases, "effect" should be "affect."