Hey All,

Please go through these links:

[url]http://news.com.com/Worm%2C+phishing+scam+hit+IM+services/2100-7349_3-5719088.html?tag=st.ref.goo[/url]

[url]http://news.com.com/5208-1023-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=2579&messageID=14080&start=-1[/url]

[url]http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.velkbot.a.html[/url]

Its not just us.... there are a bunch of us and yes Yahoo is extremely unhelpful. I say even if many of us dont remember our information or are not able to verify the information cause its changed... why dont they(yahoo) send us the password at the alternate email address which is on file.

Also I was wondering if my laptop is safe to be used or should I stop surfing through it. After reading the above articles it seems it has the capability to read our keystrokes (keyloggers) and steal valuable information.

I am all game if this thing needs to be taken to media. We need help and Yahoo need to help us instead of being a block between us and our own account.

Let me know what can be done.

Good Luck to all.

Like many of you whose postings I've read here this morning, I cannot log into one of my Yahoo! e-mail accounts. Like many of you, I am quite frustrated, since it's my non-work-email link to the world and I have lots of important information stored in various folders and old e-mails. It's also the e-mail address I have listed on just about any on-line account of any sort I have.

I called custom support (using one of the numbers I found here -- THANKS!) and complained long enough that the guy gave me a DIFFERENT email address than the one I'd already sent a query to. From your postings, I doubt I'll get any better response.

I'm glad I hit this forum when I Google'd "Yahoo Customer Service" -- at least I can track what progress, if any, anybody has. I will definitely share if I have ANY success!

Unfortunately, based on my experiences w/ a slightly different problem, trying to get ANY help for free services besides computer generated standard form replies is futile. You're really talking to a brick wall. I even called the Yahoo # listed elsewhere in this forum, no amount of begging, pleading, nothing, makes them budge.

The ONLY thing I suspect will work is if you're a paying customer. It sucks, but I've been w/o access to my email account for 3 weeks now and plan to pay for the Plus service, get it fixed (hopefully), and then cancel. I'm at a lose for any other solution short of simply giving up on Yahoo.

Yahoo is TOTALLY BRAINDEAD when it comes to their free services.

Hey eibgrad,

Have u already tried being a paying customer. Please let me know if it helped getting your account back. Also I dont know what kind of paying customer are you talking about. I guess yahoo has discontinued their Yahoo Plus services. Please let me know.

good luck.

Last week I got an IM on yahoo messenger. Stupidly I opened it and signed on. Just 2 days back, I get an email to my alternate email id saying that yahoo passwd has been changed. I have been sending email after email to yahoo customer care to no avail.

I assume most of the guys here are Indians. guess this is some indian hacker ?? Any clues? Any help from yahoo?
-Vijay

I haven't tried it as yet, I was hoping (like you) someone else had tried it already ( [url]http://www.supportsentry.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1081&postcount=8[/url] ).

Even if I got support to fix it, I'm still not sure I could cancel w/o losing the account completely. IOW, if I cancelled, would it simply revert to the free services version again (fixed of course), or would the account be deleted.

I guess for $20/yr for the Plus services, it's not the end of the world if I had to pay for it year after year. But it's annoying to think Yahoo has clearly screwed up, and now I'm forced to dole out cash (for additional services of dubious value) just to get it fixed. But I simply don't see any other alternative.

Anyway, looks like someone has to take the first step, I was hoping it wouldn't have to be *me*

Hey eibgrad,

Glad to have ur response. I totally agree.. i dont mind shelling 20 bucks but in return get my account safe and back. But why would u think they will upgrade "our" account in the first place when they are not ready to consider the account as "ours" !!! My problem is they are not ready to move ahead since I am not able to give them the information that I entered at the time of registration. All I have is the alternate email address wherein I received the password changed notification. But they wont move ahead until I give them the correct birthdate.

So I guess I am missing something here. I dont understand how can I get "my" account upgraded without them going through my identification process.

Please reply.

You're right. As I've posted in other threads regarding my problem, it is slightly different in that I'm being locked out due to the "Temporary problem accessing your mailbox" message (that I'm sure you've all seen from time to time). Normally, a simple logout and login fixes the problem immediately. Now, after 6-7 years w/ no Yahoo issues, I can't fix this error, it remains stuck.

What I proposed in another thread is perhaps (like me) some of you used the old Yahoo payment system. If so, you *might* be able to get verification by giving Yahoo that credit card information instead of the traditional information. Of course, once the scammer has the account, who knows if that info isn't compromised as well. Just a proposal, no guarantees.

But if someone scams you into giving your account away, well..., you have a serious problem, more serious than mine. Frankly, I'm not sure I understand why ppl would not have the verification data (e.g., birthdate) unless the scammer who grabbed the account has changed it. I heard someone before claim this information was not part of the original signup, so perhaps this is part of the problem too. But you would think Yahoo was aware of that potential (then again, given their treatment of free services, perhaps they just don't give a crap, unfortunately).

Maybe ya'll need to find a way to scam the scammers. Send them tons of spam, maybe someone at Yahoo will finally listen. Since it's YOUR account, it isn't even technically spam!

But honestly, I don't see any real way to address the problem if someone has actually taken possession of the account. Minimally you need *some* cooperation from Yahoo. I'm thinking that maybe if you OFFER to upgrade, maybe they'll at least listen (money talks). The scammers are certainly not going to bring any money Yahoo's way. Ok, it's only $20, but it might at least get someone to MOVE over there. Maybe you can use something else to verify, like knowing what email addresses are currently in your account, order #s from purchase confirmation emails, etc. But you have to get someone's ear over there first if this has any chance of working, which is why I would at least OFFER to purchase additional services. Maybe even a domain name too. If the account is that important, anything is worth trying, and even for a few bucks. Consider it the price paid for being taken in by these fithy scammers.

Same thing happened to me and never really got resolved, but it did get better. It's a funny story now, so I'll share. I had a hotmail e-mail account, but needed a yahoo ID to join a yahoo group. I created an ID that worked for several weeks. Then, it stopped working... well... i stopped being able to log into it anyway. So, being new to the whole groups thing, I had made the mistake to get an e-mail EACH time someone posted, etc, rather than a daily digest. It was linked up to my work e-mail and I'd get about an e-mail every half hour or so... totally annoying. So I wanted to change to a daily digest. Only, I couldn't log in.

Now, I'm not one to let problems go. I got those form letters from the yahoo customer service computer (i'm sure it's not a person) - often the same one would come three times in a row before the machine responding would notice and send something a little diferent. Who ever hacked my account changed my security question so I didn't know the answer - I had no leverage to prove who I was to yahoo. They pretty much refused to help after about 16 e-mails back and forth. Now, I have nothing better to do than to make them help me. So, I wrote them "the constant e-mails keep coming and I can't stop them. However, I can reply to the e-mails and post on the board of the yahoo group in question. Despite what you keep telling me, I know you have a way to disable this yahoo ID or change my notifacaton status. For example, if I replied with profane language to each and every e-mail, you might consider disabling my account. This is what I intend to do until you take some action. Regards."

Long story short, it worked! I didn't even have to use bad words in replys to the yahoo group. The yahoo fairy was sent by God himself to change my notification to a daily digest. To this day, I can't log into that account, but I get the daily digest.

I think I'm gonna boycott yahoo. Just as soon as I can access my e-mail account long enough to get all my addresses out. (I know... why the heck did I get a yahoo e-mail account after all that!)