I have been trying with some frustration and some amusement to regain access to the account I setup with Yahoo! about 10 years ago. I say ‘about’ because I really can’t remember exactly when but I do know that it was early days, well before the boom (and eventual bust). What I do know is I am the only person using the handle ‘wioota’ and I am the only person with a grasp of the full details of my life. I cannot remember what password I used back then (hence the problem) and I am not even sure which of a myriad of work email addresses I may have used.

What I do know is that none of my current email addresses were used as the alternate address for this account.

With all that in mind you would think I could get in contact with Yahoo! and set a new alternate email address (which in turn would allow them to send me my password). What has ensued over the past year (my first response from Yahoo! on the matter was on January 16th) has been 3 separate attempts, each involving about 7-8 exchanges between Yahoo! and myself.

And still with no resolution.

Some of the highlights include:

• Yahoo!’s insistence that I supply both my Secret Question and my Secret Answer - I’d have found it a bit easier if they could supply me with the Question so I could respond with the Answer as I am sure that is how a challenge-response mechanism is supposed to work.
• Yahoo!’s later (much later) admission that my account is so old that it doesn’t have a Secret Question or Answer attached to it.
• Yahoo! then offering to let me add a Secret Question and Answer to my account for extra security and conveniance (no offer to help me identify myself and regain access to my account though).
• Yahoo! requesting me to fax or snail mail California (during an exchange where I thought I was in contact with local - Australian - representatives).

So to Yahoo! - a company who I have felt were being unfairly ignored in the face of Google’s impressive brand equity - you are driving your loyal customers away! I would suggest taking an axe to your customer support departments (which have clearly become bureaucratic and over-automated) and start investing there. This time don’t turn to your geeks for the answers, don’t offshore it, get someone or some enterprise who know’s customer service and let them take over.

You are doing a great disservice to the excellent efforts of your talented engineers by allowing your customer service to remain this bad for this long.

Stumble it!