Yahoo...must...DIE!

[newyorkguy]

Try writing to the Consumerist. Sometimes the bad publicity a company gets there forces them to do something.

http://consumerist.com

IMO no amount of bad publicity will get through to Yahoo! It's not physically possible. It's almost like a natural law. You'd have better odds of overcoming gravity and making objects fall up.

I am currently involved with Yahoo Groups in trying to replace the recently deceased owner of a Yahoo Group which is a message board for a 501(c) organization that I belong to. In Yahoo Groups only the person designated 'group owner' (and that's all it is, a designation) has access to certain key group functions. It's risky for us to proceed without having someone designated as group owner. Replacing them is proving to be a long drawn out process. Yahoo can not seem to provide any clear guidance, either. Emails I have received from Yahoo Customer Care contradict themselves within the same email. I have some trepidation that the end result will not be what we want nor even what Yahoo says it will be.

For an Internet company Yahoo's customer service seems strangely out-of-date. They seem very user-hostile. Anyone who has dealt with Yahoo has experienced this. I can't think of another organization with a worse reputation among its users.

Yahoo doesn't get it. They refuse to get it.

 

[aggle-rithm]

After my last email to Yahoo, they responded with a message saying, "Screw it. We just turned everybody's account back on."

So I have access again, temporarily. The only problem is, I have no idea how to move the account to Yahoo. The directions they've given me still don't work.

 

[Lolly]

For an Internet company Yahoo's customer service seems strangely out-of-date. They seem very user-hostile.

They just want to mine data, they don't care about users.

My experience with yahoo was trying to cancel an account. It wouldn't let you. Spoke to people, still couldn't happen. They will hang onto your data come hell or high water.

 

[newyorkguy]

Take this opportunity to copy everything you can to use with your new web site. The reinstatement is only supposed to last until January 14, 2014. Who knows, that could mean-

"Originally we had hoped to maintain the reinstated accounts until 01/14/2014. However..."

...
This sort of thing is a sure sign of a large company making a transition without thinking it through. I know they can't possibly anticipate EVERY problem, but this time there are apparently so many problems that their support system has been brought to its knees...

The same thing happened at Yahoo Groups. In August they rolled out a new group design. They did not tell group owners in advance when they were getting it. People resented that. It had lots of bugs. Really basic stuff which didn't work. This made people question how they product-tested the new design before roll out. When you went to the help page it listed a help line with the admonition, something like, "Due to the high volume of calls we are currently receiving you may not be able to get through."

Apparently the only thing more frustrating than using Yahoo is working for them:

According to a multitude of top-ranking posts on an anonymous internal message board used by Yahoo to vent their frustrations to top staff, employees there are becoming increasingly upset by an evaluation system instituted by CEO Marissa Mayer that has apparently resulted in the firings of more than 600 people in recent weeks.

A key point: The fact that some staffers are being let go is not the core issue — many inside agree that the Silicon Valley Internet giant has long needed to prune its employees and upgrade its talent base. Mayer has been aggressively doing that, even adding to overall employee numbers at Yahoo, largely via an incessant series of acquisitions. Link

The problem is, apparently, managers have to rank staff on a scale (or curve) from 'good' to 'occasionally misses.' In that kind of ranking someone obviously has to be on the low end. That someone is labeled 'occasionally misses' (and thus is in danger of losing their job) even if their manager DOES NOT AGREE they do 'occasionally miss.'

From a Yahoo manager:

It is 100% true that managers are told they need to put someone in occasionally misses to meet the distribution. It is not a cop out, as you mention. We are told, very clearly, that we have to rank someone low. So, forced ranking is in place, regardless of what Marissa thinks is happening. Maybe it’s not supposed to happen — but Marissa needs to make this very clear to upper management before they have us force rank next time.