Yahoo-Fraud

Hi! I’m Andrew!
Thanks for stopping by and reading this Post!

I’ve written this Blog, because of an incident that happened to me…

Now I’ve always been a huge Fan of Yahoo for many years!
Ever since I’ve started using the Internet in fact.

But unfortunately, I’ve now become one of the many victims to see first hand, The Dark Side of Yahoo…

November 08th 2007,

So I’ve been online for some time now, and I thought that it’s about time I’ve bought myself my own Domain Name, because I’m getting into the Online Marketing and Entrepreneurship Industries.

I’ve searched around the Internet for a week or more, looking for the best Domain Registrar for me to start off with.

So I find myself winding up with the Perfect deal!
Seemingly “Too good to be true!”

Yahoo is giving away Domains at a set up Fee of only $1.99 USD for the first year!
Wow! That sounds great!

I spent a little more time checking around, reading the details, making sure everything is safe.
The Service looks good, Trustworthy, Affordable. So I go ahead with the purchase!

Setup Date:
11/08/2007 - Yahoo! Domains setup 1 year - $1.99

Service Ordered

Plan purchased: Domains
Domain name: epsilonx5.com
Purchase date: 11/8/2007
Order number: 106919233
Term: 1 year

Billing Summary

Annual Charges:
1. Domains fee: (1-year term): $9.95 $1.99 (Discount for new customers only)

Today’s total: $1.99

Note: Your special discount is valid only for the term listed above, after which you’ll be billed annually at our regular price.

Ok,  cool.
So far, I’ve just got an awesome deal!

I only payed $1.99 for the first year of Domain service.
I was fully aware also, that my Annual billing Fee would increase to: $9.95 USD, after this first year of subscription was over.
And that’s cool, that’s a fair deal to me.

The date of the next Billing fee, would of course be: 11/8/2008 (November 08th 2008),
1 year away from my Domain Setup, which was on: 11/8/2007 (November 08th 2007)

So now, I am in good understanding with the Terms that Yahoo has laid out.

I go ahead building my website during that year, learning allot about Internet Marketing, Managing Domains, Web Designing, HTML, CSS, etc, etc…

Basically, I had a good year of learning and gained allot of online experience.
I even went ahead to buy other Domains (from another Domain Registrar) to build a few websites that came out to be quite successful.

Business was going good, and even though the cash flow wasn’t very impressive yet, I managed to gain allot of understanding and experience; allot of reputability for my work, and a large amount of visitors to my websites.

Everything seems to be going fine, until…
that day, when all the confusion started…

Mail From: “Yahoo! Small Business”
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:08 PM

Get ready for another year of Yahoo! Domains

Dear Andrew Davis,

Thanks for using Yahoo! Domains. We’re writing to remind you that it’s time for the annual auto renewal of your service.

Your Domains plan, associated with the domain epsilonx5.com, will renew on 10/24/2008. If your billing information is up-to-date, there’s no need to do a thing (except keep enjoying your service).

Important note: Beginning on July 1, 2008, Yahoo!’s annual domain renewal price increases to $34.95 per year.

You can verify your billing information by visiting https://billing.yahoo.com/ and clicking the Update link next to your plan. Click the gray Edit button to the right of your payment method to review your payment details.

(Please note that the billing center will not reflect the new $34.95 domain-renewal price until July 1. Until that time, you will continue to see the old renewal price next to your plan.)

Have questions? Please visit our help center or contact us anytime.

Best regards,

The Yahoo! Small Business team

Umm…
So what just happened here?

Wasn’t my annual Domain Renewal to be an agreed $9.95?
Why in the world is Yahoo! sending me a letter now, proclaiming my new renewal fee to be a whopping $34.95 USD!

Wasn’t my domain purchase date on (11/8/2007), and my renewal date to be (11/8/2008) in November?
Why in the world has Yahoo! forced my renewal date into the month of October? (10/24/2008)
clearly robbing me of my paid Domain Service time.

Is it ok for Yahoo! to just increase their renewal price on you, without re-establishing the agreement?

Can they just jump from $9.95 to $34.95 with such and abrupt warning?

Can Yahoo! call a 351% increase on their price, and force you to pay it, just because they are the “Big Boys” around here? Because they rule this side of town?

So what if Yahoo! decided to raise the price to $350.00? or maybe $35,000.00?
How about a whopping $1,000,000.00 USD!?

Is it because it’s $34.95 is just small money to the working man?
because it isn’t that big a deal, I should just “Let it slide”?

So really..
I want you guys to tell me, if Yahoo had decided to increase the renewal fee to $1,000,000.00, maybe because of some “Super Extreme Hyper Business Tools” or whatever features they have added, what would be the case?
I really would like to know…

I never made an agreement to pay $34.95 on the renewal date of my Domain name.
Thus, they cannot increase the price of my Renewal Fee, and charge my Credit Card for it, without my consent.
It is complete nonsense!

I still haven’t gotten to the end of the story yet…

So, I see this outrageous increase they stated in the mail.
I then decide to immediately take action!

I proceeded to the website: name.com
and promptly requested Domain Transfer.

Name.com - Transfer Confirmation (Transfer ID:891))
Friday, September 26, 2008 7:33 PM

Dear ***********@yahoo.com,

We have recently received a request to transfer the following domain name(s) from the current registrar to name.com.

epsilonx5.com

You have received this message because you are listed as the Registered Name Holder or Administrative contact for the domain name(s) in the WHOIS database.

Please read the following important information about transferring your domain name(s):

You must agree to enter into a new Registration Agreement with us. You can review the full terms and conditions of the Agreement at http://www.name.com/registration_agreement.php.

Once you have entered into the Agreement and we submit the transfer request to the registry, the transfer will take place within five (5) calendar days unless the current registrar of record denies the request.

Once a transfer takes place, you will not be able to transfer to another registrar for 60 days, apart from a transfer back to the original registrar, in cases where both registrars so agree or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs.

If you do not respond by 2008-09-29 20:33:07 Mountain Time, this authorization will expire and the domain name(s) will not be transferred to us.

To PROCEED with the transfer, please click on the following URL:

https://www.name.com/***************************

You will be asked to provide the username and password of your account.

To view the status of your currently pending transfers you can click on the following URL:

https://www.name.com/***************************

To DENY the transfer, do not respond to this message.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact Support@Name.com. When contacting support regarding this transfer, please provide the following information:

Transfer In ID: ***
Transfer Authorization Key: *******************************
Thank You,

Support
name.com

So then, on reciving this mail, I continued on to authorize the Domain Transfer.
I followed all steps sucessfully,

And everything ran smoothly.

It was a 6 step Process.

1 of the Steps, required name.com getting authorization from yahoo.com, to proceed with the Transfer.

This step was successful also!
Which means, that yahoo.com gave the OK to name.com to proceed with the Domain Transfer.

Domain: epsilonx5.com
Whois Host:  whois.************.com
Auth Code: ********
Registry Request Date: 2008-09-26 21:55:49
Progress:  6 / 6

Details for epsilonx5.com

1. Domain transfer complete.

Authorization Information
Email: ***********@yahoo.com
Date Sent: 2008-09-26 20:33:08
Date Authorized: 2008-09-26 20:35:27
Auth Expire Date: 2008-09-29 20:33:08
Status: OK - AUTH’ED

We see here, that all transactions were completed by: 2008-09-26 (September 26th 2008)

In Summary:

On September 26th 2008,
My Domain Name “epsilonx5.com” was successfully transferred from Domain Provider: yahoo.com to name.com.

The transfer was fully authorized by both parties,
and all proceedings was successful.

From September 26th 2008, yahoo.com was no longer the Domain Provider of epsilonx5.com.

Since September 26th 2008, name.com has been the Domain Provider of epsilonx5.com.

When I received the conformation mail from name.com that the transfer was successful,
I immediately pointed my Name Servers to my own Server via the name.com Control Panel.

Once the change was globally propagated within the same day,
everything ran smoothly, and I’ve been using name.com as the provider for that Domain ever since.

It seems that everything is going ok, not so?

Well it looked that way… until late November 2008.

I received my Credit Card Statement, and I was shocked to see this:

Date of Transaction: 24th November
Date of Post: 27th November

Transactions: YAHOO   *EPSILONX5.COM   80-318-0870   C   34.95   USD
Amount: $219.49

So as you can see, Yahoo! decided to charge my Credit Card, for a next year of Domain service, 2 months after I successfully transferred my Domain Provider to name.com.

What do you readers thing of this issue?
Isn’t it completely unfair and abusive of Yahoo! to do something like that?

Why can’t they just do fair business, which people will respect them for.

One of the explanations for this act of Fraud, I heard from sources recently;
is that Yahoo! is falling in the in the Online Market.
And that their Yahoo Small Business Program, turned out to be a failure.

This then caused Yahoo to skyrocket prices on their existing and new members, to grab at what ever bit of money they can get out of them, before the service crashes.

Before I wrote this Blog, I tried a great deal of times to get into contact with Yahoo.
unfortunately for me,
Yahoo provides no E-mail support.
The Online chat Support is a lie! Because Yahoo did not provide any sort of avenue for online support.
The 24/7 toll Free Customer support is also a Hoax!
Because I quite remember that the only contact line yahoo left available, was a Phone number to call the Service Center, which was open from 6:00 am - 6:pm (Pacific Standard Time), if I remember correctly.

This caused me to go through some sleepless nights, trying to get into contact with yahoo at 2:00am in the morning, to get them at opening hours (6:00 am).

I never got to speak to anyone via that number.
I only got a busy tone every time I tried.

Now many of you people must wonder,
Why am I going through all that fuss over a simple $34.95?
That would be simple pocket money by tomorrow.

Well you see, I really used to trust yahoo before…
I’ve always used a large host of yahoo services, ever since I’ve gotten online.
Even my homepage has always been “yahoo.com” for all these years.

So I guess it comes somewhat of a shock, how your “trusted friend” can turn traitor on you so quickly when it comes to money.

And also, the other reason why I made this blog, is because I don’t like to be double crossed.
I don’t like scammers who are adding to the list of criminals in our Society.

So no matter how small the robbery may seem.
I will NOT turn a blind eye to the situation, and let Yahoo advantage people.

So this basically concludes my story folks!
I hope everything was understandable to you.
Sorry for the great length of this post, but I wanted to explain entirely the situation, step by step.

So now you can see for you self, what sort of company Yahoo is really like.

Not to mention that extra hit on my savings just before Christmas time (as small as it was),
caused me not to be able to get my little sister the gift she was hoping for at Christmas day…

Please leave comments about this story below.
Also, if you find any grammatical issues, glitches with the site, or any legal issues, please notify me also.

Thanks for much for your time!

I’ve also put together some interesting Screenshots for you readers to look at:
(All Screenshots below were taken on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009.)
[Click on the Images to Maximize them]

1) As far as I know, this “$9.95/year” Price no longer exists according to Yahoo’s statement.

Beginning on July 1, 2008, Yahoo!’s annual domain renewal price increases to $34.95 per year.

If the Setup fee for the first year is still $9.95, then why are they claiming $9.95/year Domains, when that offer does not actually exist…

The annual renewal price of Yahoo’s Domains stands at $34.95/year.

2) “24-hour phone and online support”?
They’ve got to be kidding me!

I tried for days, and I could not contact Yahoo by phone.
And as far as I know, there is no such “Online Support” provided by Yahoo.

I have done allot of searches, read Forums and Blogs, and everywhere that I look, all of Yahoo’s Customers have a problem contacting them.
Yahoo does not even provide a contact e-mail address…
Try to contact Yahoo yourself and see!

Yahoo is like that Mysterious Figure in the dark corner of the Ally… With a shadowy face, wearing a shades, a cheap suit and holding a shiny Suitcase that’s conveniently half-hidden behind his back.

You just don’t trust them!
You’ll never see or hear from them again after they double crossed you!

3) Here I’m continuing forward to see if Yahoo intends on revealing the real renewal price of their Domains.

(renewal price varies by term) - So they are trying to hint it to you in smart, to get around the legal boundaries, but they do not tell you exactly what type of costs you may be facing.

Take note, I searched all over the page for a link on details for the renewal price variation.
No info is present!

Continuing…

Still no indication of the real Pricing…

Continuing…

Yahoo still playing the Phony!

Logging in to Continue purchase.
To see if they will make mention of that $34.95 renewal price before I invest my money into Yahoo’s little Scam.

Ok, here is where I stopped!
I’m not going to enter any Credit Card info ever again.

If I’m not risking that they may have already charged my Credit card by the time I hit the next step.

If anyone would bravely like to try a purchase and continue to the next step,
please feel free to send some Screenshots for me.

Yahoo, or anyone else that needs to contact me about this Blog, can contact me via:
E-mail: yahoo-fraud@epsilonx5.com

Or you can leave a Comment below.

Thanks for reading everyone!
-Andrew Emmanuel Davis

Tags: Yahoo Domain, Yahoo Fraud, Yahoo Scam

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 1:33 am and is filed under Yahoo Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.