theberle Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 My yahoo account that I've used for about 8 years as my primary email was terminated last month for TOS violations. I was reporting about 10-20 Yahoo hosting and/or GeoCities URL violations per day through SpamCop and directly to their abuse email address. I'm certain I wasn't violating their TOS through other means. Has this happened to anybody else? I fear that I was terminated for over-reporting spam or something silly like that! Also, does anybody have any idea how I could contact a human at Yahoo to discuss this further or get some insight into why I was banned? I've emailed them at 4-5 addresses about 20 times total, trying to get a response, and all I have received back is automated responses and generic cut/paste answers. I called their switchboard and talked to a person, but all she could tell me was I had been terminated for TOS violations and she gave me an email to try for more info, but they also keep giving me zero details. This is so frustrating; I feel like I've lost a large part of my life, and have no idea how to get it back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 I called their switchboard and talked to a person, but all she could tell me was I had been terminated for TOS violations and she gave me an email to try for more info, but they also keep giving me zero details.38952[/snapback] I would try the switchboard again and ask again, explaining what happened the last time. Unfortunately, that is probably your best path (unless you take a road trip). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g4mby Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 Also, does anybody have any idea how I could contact a human at Yahoo to discuss this further or get some insight into why I was banned? I've emailed them at 4-5 addresses about 20 times total, trying to get a response, and all I have received back is automated responses and generic cut/paste answers. 38952[/snapback] I've also found Yahoo support totally unreasonable and unhelpful. As I could not remember some of the details that I signed up with and cannot access my account to see what they are/were they have refused to help me with my problem. They could of course ask me several other questions so that I can prove who I am but they won't. They have to ask only certain questions, common sense and human intervention seem to be beyond their reasoning. Their final response was for me to resubmit a new support request with the information that they were asking for in order to obtain help. But that was the whole point of me e-mailing them over and over again, I could not remember all of that information. And what was that information they insisted upon having? The e-mail address that I originally signed up with, which of course I had by then changed! I no longer use Yahoo for anything now and probably never will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btech Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 I find it unlikely that they would shut you down, because you reported people that are abusing the Geocities sites as referrers... but I personally feel if they DID do so, that would be a red flag to never deal with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted January 7, 2006 Share Posted January 7, 2006 I don't know about yahoo, but Wazoo has a story to tell about hotmail. And I got my daughter's email shut down once by reporting spam (I forget the details. It wasn't from her, but somehow her hotmail address was involved and it took me over 24 hours of emailing every abuse address I could find to get it re-installed). So I think it is very possible that some one wasn't paying attention and shut down your account because of a spam report. I, too, think that the switchboard is the way to go - ask for a supervisor. Emails are too chancy and many times, even if you get a dialogue going, you get more than one person answering so you have to keep repeating and refuting different 'canned' replies. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbear Posted January 7, 2006 Share Posted January 7, 2006 I agree with miss Betsy - like yourself I was reporting 10-20 geocities spammers every day, each to their own domain abuse address, however, on the au.geocities abuse address I noticed that they had a SMTP system problem - for every au.geocities abuse report that I sent I was getting a bounce back to my reporting address from the non-existent address geo-guidelines[at]yahoo-inc.com, (needless to say that address wasn't in the original outgoing message headers), e.g.: The original message was received at Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:35:02 -0800 (PST) from silverline.cc.kana.corp.yahoo.com [207.126.228.36] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <geo-guidelines[at]yahoo-inc.com> (reason: 550 5.1.1 <geo-guidelines[at]yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to mrin2.yahoo.com.: >>> DATA <<< 550 5.1.1 <geo-guidelines[at]yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown 550 5.1.1 <geo-guidelines[at]yahoo-inc.com>... User unknown <<< 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient) I wonder if something like that had something to do with it? Fortunately I don't have a Yahoo email account..... My geocities spammers seem to have all but disappeared for the moment, in fact my spam daily total is still down by at least 50% cf. before the holiday period. Let's hope it stays like that.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theberle Posted January 9, 2006 Author Share Posted January 9, 2006 They could of course ask me several other questions so that I can prove who I am but they won't.38958[/snapback] Yes, I had the same problem. They ask me what my secret question and answer were. I've had the account 8 years...I don't know my secret question, but if they send me the question, I'm sure I can answer it. But, they won't send it to me! I also have my alternate-email now forwarding back into my yahoo account (and it's inaccessible), so I can't get any notifications there. And, I will no longer use yahoo ever again, but I still would love to get my 8 years of saved emails, receipts, tax info, legal records, etc... out of my email before I quit using them. And, bobbear, I know exactly what you're talking about. I began reporting each geocities site to their country's domain for the SMTP problem. They were redirecting each uk.geocities.com email I sent to abuse[at]geocities.com to (this address may be incorrect, as I no longer have any records of this because my account doesn't work) "uk-geo-guidelinesuk-geo-guidelines [at] cc.yahoo-inc.com" and it was bouncing back to me. I started a dialogue with the yahoo and geocities abuse teams, and got NOWHERE from them, with about 20 different support tickets open (hoping that I might find one human who actually has a clue) so maybe forwarding the bounced messages to them also may have led to my banning. I also had a few threads going on with Yahoo's help department with Yahoo mail's inability to forward full headers correctly on successive messages. I've also had the identical problem you described, with the "geo-guidelines" address, as well as an "abuse-tos" address at yahoo. Every time I send "my-login-support" my info to try to figure out why I couldn't log in, it would bounce back to me after forwarding to one of these addresses. Yahoo's support department is VERY screwed up. Maybe I'll try calling. I've also got a letter drafted pleading for someone to take a 2nd look at my account. I figure good ol' snail mail might also do the trick. Thanks for all the advice all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theberle Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 I wonder if something like that had something to do with it? Fortunately I don't have a Yahoo email account..... 38986[/snapback] Bobbear, as I thought more about this, I realized that you may have hit the nail on the head...when sending abuse reports to abuse at geocities.com, I was getting bounces from the uk.geocities abuse address, which contained some Yahoo SMTP redirections and an attachment called "noname," which had some of my header info in it. I then forwarded all that back to the geocities, geocities UK, and yahoo abuse addresses, to let them know about the problem. They probably saw my address in the headers of the original message, figured I was reporting myself (without even reading my explanation), then flagged me for spamming! I know they don't usually read my explanations, because usually after thoroughly explaining the situation, I got a reply saying either my computer had a virus or someone had forged my headers. Now, the question is, how the heck to I get someone at Yahoo to look into this? Unfortunately, they've branded me a spammer, and treat me as such (in other words, totally disrespectful), which I sort of agree with, since spammers deserve no respect, ever. -Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbear Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Now, the question is, how the heck to I get someone at Yahoo to look into this? Unfortunately, they've branded me a spammer, and treat me as such (in other words, totally disrespectful), which I sort of agree with, since spammers deserve no respect, ever. I'm sorry to hear that - I don't know the answer to that one - it's most unfortunate. I've tried many times to report the bounces to yahoo as a network problem, (not to the abuse address), and have never had a reply or any success - they have been totally unresponsive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.