Sorry this is so long but it is a week worth of issues (Please Read)On the morning of December 31, 2006 I was able to use my Yahoo! email address just fine. However, that evening I went to go login and it said:
Invalid ID or password. Please try again, and type the text you see in the picture below.So I went to the Forget your ID or password and it said:
Your account has been flagged or deactivated by Customer Care.I contacted customer support numerous times by email and all I got was a form response saying:"Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care. We received your question and the wheels of progress are in motion. A support rep will get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, please visit our online help center (http://help.yahoo.com/), if you have not already done so. You'll find a lot of good information there."Then they never responded after that.
So I tried to call Yahoo! except they have no public phone numbers. So I had to crack down and do some research the first number I found was Yahoo!'s main office 408-349-3300 so I called that and they forwarded me to Yahoo Customer Service (408-349-1572) who that the reason my account was shut off was because of a terms of service violation on my Geocities account. The violation was the uploading of "Adult Material" which I did not do. So she told me to submit my story to the Geocities Abuse form. Which I did and the message is below:
I spoke to Summer from The Music Billing Department over the phone and she told me to submit my issue here. My yahoo account was deactivated and she told me it was due to adult material on my geocities account. I have never ever uploaded adult material to my geocities account and would never think of doing so. Nevertheless I really do not care about the geocities account. My main concern is that I get my email account back with ALL the email messages included. Please get back to me ASAP and this will all go smooth. If it helps any my dad is a current Yahoo stock holder!!!!The form response I got from this was:
"Dear Joel,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Geocities. Your Yahoo! account was disabled pursuant to the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service (TOS). You agreed to abide by the TOS when you created your Yahoo! GeoCities account. The TOS can be found for your review at: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html
and provides in relevant part: "You agree that Yahoo!, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, Yahoo! GeoCities site, use of the Service or use of any other Yahoo! service, and remove and discard any Content within the Service, for any reason, including, without limitation, for lack of use or if Yahoo! believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS. Yahoo! may also in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to the service under any provision of this TOS may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and agree that Yahoo! may immediately deactivate or delete your Yahoo! GeoCities Site and all related information and files in your Yahoo GeoCities site and/or bar any further access to such files or the Service."
We take the operation of Yahoo! and the TOS very seriously. We continue to support Users who abide by the TOS.
You are welcome to establish a new account with Yahoo! and Yahoo! GeoCities at any time, provided that your use complies with our Terms of Service. If you are concerned that your intended use of our service maybe a violation of the TOS, we encourage you to review the TOS and to take care to proceed accordingly.
In the future, if you find what you feel to be a violation of our Terms
of Service, we encourage you to report it to us via our Violation
Reporting Form:
http://geocities.yahoo.com/main/contact/alert_form.html
We also encourage you to review our TOS:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html
If you feel this message does not adequately respond to your question or comment, please reply to this email and let us know.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Sarah Richards"So I called back customer support and they sent me to the number 1-866-492-4664 which turns out to be Yahoo! Pay for Support. Since I am not going to pay $30 for an issue that is not even my fault I asked to speak their supervisor. Instead of me being transferred to a supervisor the lady hung up on me (great customer support practices Yahoo!). So I called back and spoke to Warren at Yahoo! Express which was a good guy and actually was a little helpful and sent me to Joseph at Security (1-866-562-7249) who told me to submit my claim to
reportabuse@yahoo-inc.com. I said I am done using forms and email and he said well there is no phone number. So I said are you telling me that there is not a single phone in the abuse building and he said I guess not (Another great Yahoo! practice...sweat shop labor)
So I sent the following email to
reportabuse@yahoo-inc.com:
"Hello,
I have contacted customer care and spoke to Joseph and he made me aware that my account was deactivated because of a terms of service violation on my Geocities account. The violation is the uploading of adult material. I am not the one that uploaded this material and would never think of uploading this kind of material to any web server. Nonetheless I really do not even care about the Geocities account anymore and all I want is my email account back with ALL the email messages included. My dad is a current Yahoo stock holder and if this problem persists he is going to have to speak to a supervisor.
Thank you in advance,
Joel"Yahoo responded with the same form letter as above except this time it was signed by Jamie Williams instead of Sarah Richards.
Since I felt that this message [did] not adequately respond to [my] question or comment I responded with the following:
To whom this may concern,
I feel that in no way did you answer my question and I am sick of all the form letters with a different name at the bottom. All I wanted was my email messages back and you ignored my request. Someone stole my password and uploaded material that violated the TOS and you refuse to allow me access to my email. This would be the same as someone stealing your credit card and the company refusing to take off the charges. Nonetheless I am sick of talking to you minimum wage employees and I would like the phone number (not email) of your supervisor as my dad (a stock holder) will be calling. If you do not respond with a phone number my dad will be calling Terry Semel first thing Monday morning. In case you are not aware Mr. Semel is the CEO of Yahoo! and thus your boss and my dad as a stock holder is Mr. Semel's boss.
Joel
And as of right now I am still waiting for a response.
I will keep you updated.
Thank you for reading and please make comments.
Also please digg and reddit this as I want it to be as big if not bigger than http://verizonmath.blogspot.com which is where I got this idea.
