yahoo

I was a member of Geocities for close to 5 years.   When I first joined them they were a small and innovative community oriented net entity, then apparently, the powers that be took them over.   As this happened, features improved, while the community diminished - - however impressed by the options they offered I joined at about $4.95 a month.

Little by little, more features became premium options, however it seemed to me like they were still offering a good package - - until, one day some people went to log on to my website and it just wasn't there (!)   Being a paid premium member, the first thing I did was e-mail customer service expecting a prompt explanation (especially considering that there weren't any pictures of naked girls or boys on my site.)    I am happy to say that all of my e-mails were answered... weeks later.

After several days of unanswered e-mails, I was finally able to find a customer service number (you have to call Yahoo in San Jose.)   Apparently the one of a million credit cards I had lapsed.   It wasn't that I wasn't paying my bills... the company went under.   - - But for some reason, despite having an AOL and YAHOO account (of which they surely had both) I was given no notice... they just pulled my site.

When I finally got in touch to clear things up, I was told that there was no problem, all I had to do was update my Yahoo Wallet - - what I wasn't told was that that would have to involve paying their set up fee all over again.    I felt that was very unfair, because I received no notice that there was a billing problem, and it seemed to me as if their rates had gone up as well. Even customer service admitted I should have received a warning e-mail (of course, atleast one of them blamed it on AOL.)    - - It was at that point I began searching for another web hosting company.   2-3 weeks or more to answer a customer service inquiry for a premium service billing related inquiry, and the fact that they couldn't waive a silly ten or so dollar set up fee for a long term customer simply showed me one thing...   they didn't need my business, and perhaps the powers that be were gambling on the fact that either I (and millions of other folks) 1) didn't know any better, or 2) after 1,000s of hours of building their websites would pay the fee rather than losing their page and 3) with Geocities' "newbie friendly" features, they probably assume that people like us wouldn't have the confidence to jump ship.

Well, I did... and I have no regrets.   - - I'm now about $60.00 a year, have access to the same features (actually more - - including a much faster and friendlier control pannel and stuff like a CGI Bin at no extra charge) - - and guess what.. customer service gets back to you in 1 hour or less.

After the 1000s of hours of work I put on this site, I feel sad leaving Geocities, however, after the treatment I received, all I can say is.... thank you YAHOO...
and to visitors of my new web site - - WELCOME...

Eddie Landsberg
P.S. In all fairness to Yahoo, I'm still receiving responses to the repeated customer service inquiries I sent over a month ago.... you definitely can't say they don't get back to you (!)(!)(!)