Yahell Strikes Again

March 13, 2009 5:25 PM

Yahoo/Yahell filter: A friend's Yahoo account was deleted without notice to her and without her permission... How can she get it back?

So why am I asking this? Because she was the owner of a writing group of which I'm a member and major contributor. The group is now also gone - along with all of those writings!

My friend's account was hijacked about two weeks ago and a spam message was sent out on YahooIM to all of her contacts. She was able to log into her account and didn't have a clue that anything was wrong until I mentioned the spam to her.

Yesterday, she attempted to log in and discovered that her account was gone - completely not in Yahoo's (user-accessible) database. The group's site stayed up until today, when I attempted to access it. Now the group is gone.

My friend's roommate sent a Yahoo help question to Yahoo 30 hours ago; they haven't heard anything back. Is there some way around the maze that Yahoo puts in place to prevent its users from finding real help?

posted by LOLAttorney2009 to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I had problems with my yahoo mail several weeks ago. after 3 or 4 exchanges with the "help" people (24 hr response times for each message) the issue was resolved. maybe someone got her password & shut down the account OR yahoo may have blocked it due to the spam thing. As far as the yahoo group thing if you really want a presence on the web get your own domain/website or blog. Then you own it. It may cost a few dollars but as we all know nothings really free. & back it up.
posted by patnok at 6:41 PM on March 13, 2009

Best answer: This Yahoo! answers pages has email addresses and a phone number you can try.

You may not get anywhere though; the Yahoo! terms of service allow them to terminate an account for any reason at any time.
posted by JonB at 3:13 AM on March 14, 2009

i got cancelled about 2 years ago, for no reason. i didnt try too hard but didnt get it back.
i'm just adding to let u know that yahoo mail is unreliable.
posted by edtut at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2009

Response by poster: I know yahoo is unreliable; I've been urging my friend to move the writing group off of Yahoo for months.

Fortunately, I use gMail for everything. I just installed a filter on gMail and was able to recover most of the writings that had been posted on the Yahoo group. Yay for gMail!

Thanks for the answers page, JonB. I forwarded that to my friend.
posted by LOLAttorney2009 at 9:40 AM on March 14, 2009

Response by poster: Just as a follow-up, for if anyone else has this question, Yahoo did absolutely *nothing* in regard to this. Every time I or my friend emailed the "Customer Service" folks, we'd get a stock answer along the lines of: "Yahoo reserves the right to delete offending accounts with no notice and no repercussions." They provided no help whatsoever, particularly since we weren't in violation of the Terms of Service, etc.

It was frustrating, but we've moved on (and away) from Yahoo. I recommend that everyone, everywhere, move away from Yahoo and never, ever, ever use Yahoo for anything.
posted by LOLAttorney2009 at 3:50 PM on April 13, 2009