Why Google is now my homepage instead of Yahoo

I promised in an earlier article on my frustrations in dealing with web companies that I would talk about my most frustrating experience of all. Without a doubt, hands down the absolute worst company to deal with is Yahoo!

I have been a Yahoo customer since at least 1996 or 1997.  I remember when Yahoo was a plain gray page and all they had was search.  I have used MyYahoo as my home page since it first came out. I had a Yahoo email account (most people know that now), used Yahoo for fantasy football and for most of my personal email.  Though the world went to Google, I stayed with Yahoo.

Though by 72 hours after the attack I had everything else back under control, here we are over a week later and I still don't have my Yahoo account back. It is shut down because the attackers sent out disgusting porn to people in my Yahoo address book.  Of course this was mostly parents of the little league baseball, football and soccer teams I coach.  But that is indicative of the quality type of people who were involved in this attack.

I have written and called to every address you can think of.  They have asked for copies of my drivers license.  They wanted all of my information when I first applied for an account (yes from 12 years ago). I have had to give them every email address I ever had (anytime you fill out information for a new account you should make a record of it and keep it somewhere safe.  Don't ask me where, but somewhere safe).  Every mail address and zip code I have had. I sent them the answer to every secret question I can think of, but they won't give me the question they want to answer. I sent them the hackers post bragging about getting my email account.

Finally on Sunday I received an email that if I would call with the 8 digits of the credit card on file with my Yahoo wallet (I didn't even know I had a Yahoo wallet.  Again, if you fill something out, keep a copy and record of it somewhere) I could have my account back. I called and left a message.  I called again and left a message. I called again, and again and again. I have called about 12 times in 2 days and have not gotten one call back or even an email response.  What does it take?

At this point I don't know if and when I may ever get my Yahoo account back. What a shame, all of that data and history lost.  In the meantime I have made Google my homepage and am using iGoogle. I have to say, it is better than Yahoo.  I have my gmail account. I am registering for new fantasy football on other sites.  I am done with Yahoo.  They are not a company I want to do business with anymore.

For a web giant, they should have better process and procedures in place to deal with an account being hijacked like this. Shame on me for having this happen, but shame on Yahoo for just not being a company that values its customers.