Hello, Blogging Pals!
This will not be a funny post. If that's what you are looking for, I suggest you bail now and find one elsewhere. This is a rant about Yahoo!
So... as time goes on, I have come to expect less and less from "customer service" departments. My expectations have not only been met, they have frequently been exceeded. This little debacle really takes the cake and I am writing about it to inform any of you who do business with Yahoo! about their complete lack of concern for you or your account which is replaced with a HUGE concern about making money from you.
Long story as short as I can make it:
As a Realtor in Austin, I had an individual put together a web site for me which included obtaining five domain names I could use to direct traffic to that site. He purchased the five domain names for me in late 2004, billed me for his work including the domain name charges, and everything was good to go. I did not ask anything about the domain names or the account he had used to purchase them as I was led to believe he would be handling that for me.
In early 2007, I was making some changes and checked on the domain names. None of them led to my web site. Further investigation revealed the domain name registration had expired in late 2006 as they were 2-year registrations. I contacted Yahoo! customer service in an attempt to get these domain names back. They would not even TALK to me since the account was not in my name and I could not verify the credit card number used to purchase the domain names in 2004. DUH!!! I explained verbally and in writing (email) what had taken place, etc. No help. I finally tracked down the individual who I THOUGHT was going to take care of this to find he had left town, apparently let everything go, and seemed surprised to hear from me. He (allegedly) attempted to renew the registrations through his account with Yahoo! but Yahoo! (allegedly) would not accept his credit card. He emailed me with his username and password, suggesting that I go into his account and enter my credit card information in order to get the domain names renewed. This is where I clearly made my error.
I entered his account, renewed each of the five domain names using my business credit card, then attempted to delete the credit card information from the account. The Yahoo! system would not allow deletion of that information. I requested that the individual whose account it was attempt to delete it. He was (allegedly) unable to do so. Since I was led to believe it was a 2-year renewal, I wasn't too worried about it. I asked him to notify me when the next renewal came up and would place it on my calendar for April of 2009. Easy enough.
Things changed, as you all know, and my real estate career pretty much ground to a halt in September of 2008. During the move to Louisiana, I received a credit card bill with (you guessed it) five charges for $34.95 each for the five domain names. I don't think so!!! I immediately disputed the charges via the credit card company. They were removed and the games began.
I received a letter from my credit card company this past week advising that Yahoo! was disputing my dispute and asking if I wished to continue my dispute or recognize the charges as valid. There was an amusing letter of length from the Yahoo! folks to the credit card company pointing out all of the things that made their "automatic renewal charges" to my credit card valid. I sat right down and put together my OWN letter of length pointing out all of the reasons their reasons were NOT valid. One specific point of contention between Yahoo! and me is their statement that I should have contacted them first, before disputing through my credit card company. *chuckle* I did have to laugh at that one.
One thing I have learned after many years is to keep any/all documentation that MIGHT come in handy in the future. Fortunately, I had retained ALL of the correspondence between the actual Yahoo! accountholder and myself as well as the correspondence between the Yahoo! "customer service" representative and myself. Yup. Enclosed copies of all that fun along with my letter of length.
So... my letter was received by the credit card company on June 12th. I'm not certain what the next steps are other than their probably sending copies of MY stuff to Yahoo! for Yahoo! to review and plot to further try to collect the monies. It's pretty interesting, really. This is a firm that refused to talk to me at all... but apparently they have no compunction about taking my money even though the credit card name (mine) and address (mine) did NOT match the accountholder information they still have!!! Hmmmmmmmmmm. At any rate... I will await the next barrage. The response I receive will indicate whether or not Yahoo! is a business with ethics or whether Yahoo! is simply out to make a buck. I will keep you all posted.
Oh... and I can't put the exclamation point behind Yahoo! in the title as that character is apparently not allowed in the blog title. My apologies to Yahoo! for my inability to appropriately depict the firm. Uh-huh.
The worst part of this is how upset this situation has made my cats. It wasn't enough that they had to endure a 6-hour ride between states. Now there's this. Sigh. I hope they can manage to get over it all.
This will not be a funny post. If that's what you are looking for, I suggest you bail now and find one elsewhere. This is a rant about Yahoo!
So... as time goes on, I have come to expect less and less from "customer service" departments. My expectations have not only been met, they have frequently been exceeded. This little debacle really takes the cake and I am writing about it to inform any of you who do business with Yahoo! about their complete lack of concern for you or your account which is replaced with a HUGE concern about making money from you.
Long story as short as I can make it:
As a Realtor in Austin, I had an individual put together a web site for me which included obtaining five domain names I could use to direct traffic to that site. He purchased the five domain names for me in late 2004, billed me for his work including the domain name charges, and everything was good to go. I did not ask anything about the domain names or the account he had used to purchase them as I was led to believe he would be handling that for me.
In early 2007, I was making some changes and checked on the domain names. None of them led to my web site. Further investigation revealed the domain name registration had expired in late 2006 as they were 2-year registrations. I contacted Yahoo! customer service in an attempt to get these domain names back. They would not even TALK to me since the account was not in my name and I could not verify the credit card number used to purchase the domain names in 2004. DUH!!! I explained verbally and in writing (email) what had taken place, etc. No help. I finally tracked down the individual who I THOUGHT was going to take care of this to find he had left town, apparently let everything go, and seemed surprised to hear from me. He (allegedly) attempted to renew the registrations through his account with Yahoo! but Yahoo! (allegedly) would not accept his credit card. He emailed me with his username and password, suggesting that I go into his account and enter my credit card information in order to get the domain names renewed. This is where I clearly made my error.
I entered his account, renewed each of the five domain names using my business credit card, then attempted to delete the credit card information from the account. The Yahoo! system would not allow deletion of that information. I requested that the individual whose account it was attempt to delete it. He was (allegedly) unable to do so. Since I was led to believe it was a 2-year renewal, I wasn't too worried about it. I asked him to notify me when the next renewal came up and would place it on my calendar for April of 2009. Easy enough.
Things changed, as you all know, and my real estate career pretty much ground to a halt in September of 2008. During the move to Louisiana, I received a credit card bill with (you guessed it) five charges for $34.95 each for the five domain names. I don't think so!!! I immediately disputed the charges via the credit card company. They were removed and the games began.
I received a letter from my credit card company this past week advising that Yahoo! was disputing my dispute and asking if I wished to continue my dispute or recognize the charges as valid. There was an amusing letter of length from the Yahoo! folks to the credit card company pointing out all of the things that made their "automatic renewal charges" to my credit card valid. I sat right down and put together my OWN letter of length pointing out all of the reasons their reasons were NOT valid. One specific point of contention between Yahoo! and me is their statement that I should have contacted them first, before disputing through my credit card company. *chuckle* I did have to laugh at that one.
One thing I have learned after many years is to keep any/all documentation that MIGHT come in handy in the future. Fortunately, I had retained ALL of the correspondence between the actual Yahoo! accountholder and myself as well as the correspondence between the Yahoo! "customer service" representative and myself. Yup. Enclosed copies of all that fun along with my letter of length.
So... my letter was received by the credit card company on June 12th. I'm not certain what the next steps are other than their probably sending copies of MY stuff to Yahoo! for Yahoo! to review and plot to further try to collect the monies. It's pretty interesting, really. This is a firm that refused to talk to me at all... but apparently they have no compunction about taking my money even though the credit card name (mine) and address (mine) did NOT match the accountholder information they still have!!! Hmmmmmmmmmm. At any rate... I will await the next barrage. The response I receive will indicate whether or not Yahoo! is a business with ethics or whether Yahoo! is simply out to make a buck. I will keep you all posted.
Oh... and I can't put the exclamation point behind Yahoo! in the title as that character is apparently not allowed in the blog title. My apologies to Yahoo! for my inability to appropriately depict the firm. Uh-huh.
The worst part of this is how upset this situation has made my cats. It wasn't enough that they had to endure a 6-hour ride between states. Now there's this. Sigh. I hope they can manage to get over it all.
Until next time...
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