Help with Yahoo Small Business
June 17, 2008 5:37 PM Subscribe
Need help with Yahoo Small Business / Premium Services support: is there a way to update payment information at once? Tried their UI but to no avail. Also seek email to customer service--phone call got dropped after hours on hold.
Last year I registered 200+ domain names with Yahoo. It was cheap and efficient, and all is well... until last week.
I had changed my American Express card number and as a result, when the domain names are up for renewal this year, the system alerted me on outdated information. I tried to update my payment information, and to my surprise there is no way to update all the payment methods at once. Domains' payment information can be updated one at a time only, which is a fundamental UI flaw.
To make matters worse, when I clicked on the link to update my information, the site would consistently return a blank page that leads to no where, and I am unable to update anything. I tried refreshing the page but again nothing happens.
In my frustration, I tried contacting support on the phone, and had been on hold for two hours without any assistance, and the call will then be terminated by the system. There are no email support available, and all the meanwhile I am receiving account suspension notices and my domains are failing one by one, a truly frustrating experience.
Here's when the nightmare begin: when I signed up for the service, the domains were 9.95/year. I just received emails telling me that starting on 2008-07-01, the renewals will cost me 34.95/year. If I were unable to cancel my accounts by that date, I will be paying upwards of close to $10,000 for domain names.
Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do? Alternatively, do you know if there is an email where I can reach customer support?
Last year I registered 200+ domain names with Yahoo. It was cheap and efficient, and all is well... until last week.
I had changed my American Express card number and as a result, when the domain names are up for renewal this year, the system alerted me on outdated information. I tried to update my payment information, and to my surprise there is no way to update all the payment methods at once. Domains' payment information can be updated one at a time only, which is a fundamental UI flaw.
To make matters worse, when I clicked on the link to update my information, the site would consistently return a blank page that leads to no where, and I am unable to update anything. I tried refreshing the page but again nothing happens.
In my frustration, I tried contacting support on the phone, and had been on hold for two hours without any assistance, and the call will then be terminated by the system. There are no email support available, and all the meanwhile I am receiving account suspension notices and my domains are failing one by one, a truly frustrating experience.
Here's when the nightmare begin: when I signed up for the service, the domains were 9.95/year. I just received emails telling me that starting on 2008-07-01, the renewals will cost me 34.95/year. If I were unable to cancel my accounts by that date, I will be paying upwards of close to $10,000 for domain names.
Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do? Alternatively, do you know if there is an email where I can reach customer support?
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If that works, you're home free - your $9 fee to transfer the domains effectively renews them for a year at the new registrar, and you get a registrar you can work with.
Unfortunately, there a couple of reasons that one or more domains may fail to transfer. For example, if Yahoo has "locked" them (supposedly for your protection), you'll have to unlock them - hopefully something Yahoo's system will let you do. If not, it's back to customer service hell.
Also, if the domains are up for renewal or expired, Yahoo might not let you transfer them. In that case, I would renew them (quickly, before the price increase) and then do the transfer. You'll end up with two years paid for so you're not throwing money away.
Keep in mind that Yahoo is required by ICANN to allow you to unlock your domains and to allow you to transfer them to another registrar. The next step if all of this fails is to get ICANN involved by reporting the issues.
As for the blank pages on Yahoo's site, you might try using a different web browser and making sure you have enabled pop-ups. It's ridiculous that you should have to do that, but whatever helps you escape their system...
[I'm proceeding from the assumption that you want to get your domains out of their system. Considering all you're dealing with here, I believe that should be your primary goal.]
Good luck!
posted by mmoncur at 1:45 AM on June 18, 2008