I am in the depths of a customer service exchange with Yahoo!, the famous search engine and all things Internet mega company. I’m starting to feel desperate.
Earlier this week, after nine years with almost no problems, Yahoo! suddenly stopped recognizing my user I.D. and password. Literally, it was like someone snapped their fingers. One minute I was online, checking e-mail, checking up on my Yahoo! Groups etc. I left to go to the bathroom, and when I came back suddenly I was frozen out of my online world.
I feel like someone has snapped their fingers and banished me to a desert island with no explanation.
I can’t get too mad at Yahoo!, at least not yet. I’m one of the millions that has a free account and thus the level of technical help, understandably, isn’t much.
The first day I spent probably two hours trying to figure out how to get any help at all. The Yahoo! help pages are sort of the online equivalent of, “press 1 for x, press 2 for y…” and so on. Of course, none of the canned answers met my particular problem. I went in frustrating circles where clicking on one thing would only take me back to the page I was on two pages ago, etc. They do offer online tech support, but alas, you’ve got to be able to log in to send the tech support an e-mail with your problem. Since, apparently, in the Yahoo! world I no longer existed, I couldn’t do this.
Knowing Yahoo! must have a brink and mortar office somewhere, I went in search of the corporate switchboard number, and eventually found it.
The next day I called, explained that I knew I was one of the cheap people who wasn’t paying for an account and thus didn’t deserve to be talked to by a real human, but that I was DESPERATE! A very kind customer service rep. named Angela passed me onto another kind customer service rep. named Mark who gave me an e-mail address I could write to and be issued a new user I.D. and password. So, I did.
A day later, in the middle of the night actually, I got an automated response saying my problem had been received and was being processed.
A day after that I got an e-mail from yet another customer service rep. named Joseph (again in the middle of the night) asking for a bunch of information to verify my identity. Fair enough. Only trouble is it never occurred to me to periodically update my information with Yahoo! I established this account when I graduated from college and lost my free college e-mail account. In those post college years I moved several times, and had several alternate e-mail addresses. I no longer knew the answers to all of his questions.
So, I pleaded my case to Joseph – who, for all I know, is a made up name to give me the illusion I’m dealing with a real human being. I explained that many of my answers were guesses because it was so long ago. Joseph had wanted the answer to my secret identity question – but I didn’t remember what the question was from almost a decade ago.
So, last night Joseph e-mailed back with “the secret question.” And I provided what I pray was the right answer. The question was looking for a nick name – I’ve never really had a nick name, except in junior high, so I’m praying that was the magic answer that will allow me to regain my online life.
Again, I explained to Joseph the situation, and my best guess answer, and asked that he tell me what my next course of action would be if I flunked the test.
Losing my personal e-mail would have been bad enough – but I’ve also lost access to all the Yahoo Groups I moderate, including the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome groups. That is what has me feeling most panicky. Those groups are a lifeline for those of us that are so isolated by this disease. If there’s a Yahoo! marketing rep. trolling the blogosphere in search of what folks are saying about Yahoo! – we’d make a perfect Yahoo! groups story, if only you can solve my Yahoo! identity crisis!
So, Joseph hasn’t e-mailed back this evening with either my new user name and password, or the bad news that I’m S.O.L. That’s why I’m up so late, hoping that Mr. Joseph, who’s probably in India or China or somewhere (thus the midnight correspondence) will put me out of my misery.
So, stay tuned. Will the big corporate company have compassion on a rather pitiful user and help us restore the HPS users groups and continue our support of one another in the battle for the cure? Or will I be lost in a sea of millions of irrelevant users and languish there for who knows how long? Stay tuned for the update!
Earlier this week, after nine years with almost no problems, Yahoo! suddenly stopped recognizing my user I.D. and password. Literally, it was like someone snapped their fingers. One minute I was online, checking e-mail, checking up on my Yahoo! Groups etc. I left to go to the bathroom, and when I came back suddenly I was frozen out of my online world.
I feel like someone has snapped their fingers and banished me to a desert island with no explanation.
I can’t get too mad at Yahoo!, at least not yet. I’m one of the millions that has a free account and thus the level of technical help, understandably, isn’t much.
The first day I spent probably two hours trying to figure out how to get any help at all. The Yahoo! help pages are sort of the online equivalent of, “press 1 for x, press 2 for y…” and so on. Of course, none of the canned answers met my particular problem. I went in frustrating circles where clicking on one thing would only take me back to the page I was on two pages ago, etc. They do offer online tech support, but alas, you’ve got to be able to log in to send the tech support an e-mail with your problem. Since, apparently, in the Yahoo! world I no longer existed, I couldn’t do this.
Knowing Yahoo! must have a brink and mortar office somewhere, I went in search of the corporate switchboard number, and eventually found it.
The next day I called, explained that I knew I was one of the cheap people who wasn’t paying for an account and thus didn’t deserve to be talked to by a real human, but that I was DESPERATE! A very kind customer service rep. named Angela passed me onto another kind customer service rep. named Mark who gave me an e-mail address I could write to and be issued a new user I.D. and password. So, I did.
A day later, in the middle of the night actually, I got an automated response saying my problem had been received and was being processed.
A day after that I got an e-mail from yet another customer service rep. named Joseph (again in the middle of the night) asking for a bunch of information to verify my identity. Fair enough. Only trouble is it never occurred to me to periodically update my information with Yahoo! I established this account when I graduated from college and lost my free college e-mail account. In those post college years I moved several times, and had several alternate e-mail addresses. I no longer knew the answers to all of his questions.
So, I pleaded my case to Joseph – who, for all I know, is a made up name to give me the illusion I’m dealing with a real human being. I explained that many of my answers were guesses because it was so long ago. Joseph had wanted the answer to my secret identity question – but I didn’t remember what the question was from almost a decade ago.
So, last night Joseph e-mailed back with “the secret question.” And I provided what I pray was the right answer. The question was looking for a nick name – I’ve never really had a nick name, except in junior high, so I’m praying that was the magic answer that will allow me to regain my online life.
Again, I explained to Joseph the situation, and my best guess answer, and asked that he tell me what my next course of action would be if I flunked the test.
Losing my personal e-mail would have been bad enough – but I’ve also lost access to all the Yahoo Groups I moderate, including the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome groups. That is what has me feeling most panicky. Those groups are a lifeline for those of us that are so isolated by this disease. If there’s a Yahoo! marketing rep. trolling the blogosphere in search of what folks are saying about Yahoo! – we’d make a perfect Yahoo! groups story, if only you can solve my Yahoo! identity crisis!
So, Joseph hasn’t e-mailed back this evening with either my new user name and password, or the bad news that I’m S.O.L. That’s why I’m up so late, hoping that Mr. Joseph, who’s probably in India or China or somewhere (thus the midnight correspondence) will put me out of my misery.
So, stay tuned. Will the big corporate company have compassion on a rather pitiful user and help us restore the HPS users groups and continue our support of one another in the battle for the cure? Or will I be lost in a sea of millions of irrelevant users and languish there for who knows how long? Stay tuned for the update!
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