Why I Hate Yahoo

I usually don't use this blog to rant but every once in awhile something is so incredibly irritating that I feel a compulsion to vent a little, and also to warn any readers who stumble onto my blog about a company or agency that I think is grossly negligent or abusive.

Yahoo now qualifies.

For a long time Yahoo was the provider of two email addresses I used including my my old business domain name.  In the years since I largely shut down my practice the domain name became less and less important but partly out of laziness and partly out of general satisfaction with the service I never dropped either Yahoo Business (where the domain name was hosted) nor Yahoo Plus premium email service.

Last summer though things changed.  For a period of almost a month, nothing worked properly with my email accounts and I discovered that there was essentially no way to contact Yahoo to get things reported, explained or fixed.  I eventually tracked down a way to contact Yahoo Business but they told me that had no way to communicate with other parts of the Yahoo family and consequently could not or would not help me. 

I had just been billed $40 for their hosting the domain name and decided that this was a complete waste since I really didn't need to use it any longer so I terminated that service.  I was assured that the bulk of that money would be refunded since only about 1 week of the year they had charge me for had elapsed.  Needless to say, I never saw a penny of the promised refund.  

Recently I got a notification from Yahoo Mail Plus that they would be billing the annual charge for that service to my CapitalOne account.  I attempted to terminate the service using their online link but it didn't work.  Each time I tried to click on "Cancel Service" all that happened was that a new blank webpage opened but the service was still shown as active on my account page.

As most people who have dealt with Yahoo (and in fairness, many other big Internet companies) know, there no longer is really any way to reach customer service.  All they provide is a link to user forums where you are supposed to be able to get all the help you need.  

Eventually I succeeded in finding a phone number for Yahoo.  I spent 45 minutes on hold before a woman named

Christina answered.  She was very polite but figured out pretty quickly that I needed to talk to someone in the billing department to terminate my service and said she was transferring me.  Another 30 minutes passed with my having to listen to endless recordings of insipid music and promotions for Yahoo's website where they are deluded into thinking that all your problems can be solved.

Eventually a man named Fred came on and after going through the same information I had discussed with Christina he informed me that I needed to be transferred to the billing department.  I explained that this was precisely what Christina was supposed to have done but Fred said that somehow I had ended up back in the same general assistance section as before but said that he would transfer me.  He also gave me a direct phone number (866-562-7228) for the billings department in case I got cut off in the transfer (which I did).  When I called back I once again ended up on hold but gave up after a bit more than 30 minutes.  I had started the process of trying to terminate the service at 8:45 in the morning, had made the first call at 9:00 and gave up at 11:15 having never successfully canceled the service.

At that point I contacted CapitalOne where the charge was going to appear and attempted to dispute it but learned that you cannot dispute a charge until it has been posted.  It appeared today on my account so I called again to try to dispute the now visible charge.  At this point I can't do it because it is only a pending transaction and not an actually posted payment.  Some merchants and providers can be blocked from billing an account but due to agreements with MasterCard, some cannot.  The people at CapitalOne won't know until the bill is actually posted whether they can do anything about it although the customer service woman there had the gall to suggest that if MasterCard wouldn't allow blocking all charges from Yahoo I would have to provide proof that I had canceled the service.

This almost sent me over the edge.  I repeated, for what seemed like the thousandth time, that there is simply no way to get in contact with Yahoo and that there is no way for me to provide proof that I have canceled when Yahoo won't let me cancel.

We all deal with these horrible corporate behemoths almost daily in our lives.  I suspect long time readers of this blog remember my huge battle with Sears from a few years back that resulted in their providing me with a new $3,500 range because they couldn't come up with a part worth about 50 cents that was in the new range they delivered.  

I believe that at some level these giant corporations make a decision.  They decide that the vast majority of American consumers have no time to deal with the unending barriers to getting the products and services we pay for properly delivered to our homes either physically or electronically. 

They realize most people will just accept getting screwed by corporate America because it is so hard to avoid.  It is clear to me that Yahoo made this same decision and as a consequence I will stop paying them.  Maybe they can prevent me from canceling my service but they cannot make me pay for something I don't want.  In the end, I can terminate the only credit card account for which they have billing information and then they will have to sue me for the money they will, no doubt, continue to try to collect.  

Good luck Yahoo.  This is why I hate your company and will not be surprised a few years out when I read that you are going bankrupt.  You will have earned it.