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Killing Unwanted Text Messages from Yahoo! Alerts?
Creighti asks: "When I first got my new cellphone I immediately received several automated Text Message 'Alerts' from Yahoo and MSN which recurred on a daily basis. My guess was (is) that the previous owner of my cell phone number signed up for these things. Six months later I'm still getting unwanted text messages from Yahoo! Alerts.
I managed to get rid of the MSN messages by signing up with MSN (gack), registering the phone number as mine, and de-selecting all text messages. I've tried the same trick with Yahoo. I've tried filling out the Yahoo! Help form that appeared to apply (interestingly enough, the Yahoo Help entry I've used several times to request they stop sending the unwanted alert appears to have been removed, but clicking the 'No' button on this page would work). I've even tried emailing abuse@yahoo.com. Anyone else getting text-message spammed by Yahoo! (or any other service)? Any suggestions for what I should do next to try and get Yahoo! to stop sending these unwanted messages?" Why aren't the text message preferences deleted when the cancellation notices comes thru?
I suggest that instead of continuing to try to get Yahoo to stop sending the messages you instead contact your telephone company and ask them to block the messages before they get to your phone.
As they are making money off you and Yahoo isn't, you are more likely to get a useful response.
I'm sure Yahoo! would happily ignore your bill. If you were lucky it *might* get posted on the bulletin board, next to the cafeteria menu for the week, as humor.
Unless the cellphone number has been given out to a lot of people, I would just change it. It's the path of least resistance...
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Ok, not about cell phone text, but about getting Yahoo to stop things...
I have an *ancient* Geocities home page, that was set up before Yahoo acquired them. I am "yoderm" on Yahoo and was on Geocities before the acquisition. Unfortunately, the GC home page is not associated with my Yahoo account. I now have no way of logging into the thing, and really want it deleted.
I've sent two messages through their "help" center, but no response. I've tried every support@ and help@ type e-mail I could think of for yahoo.com, geocities.com, and yahoo-inc.com. They all either bounce or get an automated reply that says "go to the help center".
Conclusion: Yahoo goes WAY out of their way to avoid dealing with human "customers".
Why aren't the text message preferences deleted when the cancellation notices comes thru?
Yahoo essentially knows nothing about the phone number. All it knows is that there is a number (or more abstractly, an email address) through which it should send its junk. They don't know who/what/where otherwise. They know nothing about who currently owns which phone #.
is 'circulation' - the reason those morons are so keen on keeping people on their 'hit' list is so they can go to their paying clients and say, "Look! You're message is reaching 250,000 potential customers". The more 'circulation' or ratings a paper, magazine or program has, the more they can charge for it. Nevermind the fact that 249,997 people have just associated $PRODUCT with annoying marketing tactics.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Why don't you just call Yahoo, use the phone man! That's what they are for. Then traverse the hierarcy until you find the one responsible, but start at the top.
Just call them each time you get a message, sooner or later they'll get tired.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
I had a similar problem with an on-line brokerage; I gave them my pager address so they could send trade confirmations, and ONLY trade confirmations. A few months later, I started getting pager spams at 2am, 3am, etc. from them. I called their customer service people, told them to stop, and they promised it would.
When it started up a month or so later, I sent a registered letter to the CEO, calmly explaining that the first time is a mistake, the second time is harassment. I also filed complaints with the FCC, the NASD, the US attorney general, and their own attorney general.
I got a polite, written response from a representative of the company explaining why the error occured, and also outlining the steps they were taking to make sure that it could not occur again.
So... Be calm, be forgiving, and be factual. And then scream bloody murder.
If I would buy a used cell phone, I would insert my SIM-card into it. Problem solved.
Uhm, yes and no. Speaking as someone who's recently had to deal with a Very Large Company who'd over-billed me (to the tune of $200 over four months), I can tell you that yes, perseverance will pay off. Not, however, because they get 'tired', but because eventually you'll speak to someone with reason, you'll speak calmly and plainly about the situation and they'll get you fixed up. It took me over a month of phone calls; level 1, 2, and 3 before I finally got a supervisor in the billing department who was kind enough to help me out. Now that I've received the cheque, I'll have to remember to write an appropriate letter of thanks. (My sister works in a call centre so I know they hear about things like that. So if someone goes the extra mile or even helps you when others won't - let them know! The guy might get a bonus or something out of it, and it'll certainly brighten their day.)
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
They won't face federal charges. You'll have to take them to court again to obtain the means to collect your previous judgement.
I learned the hard way long ago that anybody that wants to screw you can do so with impunity so long as their legal resources are a lot bigger than yours.
But what is this doing on the front page? This is something you ask a smaller specialized forum, not the slashdot community. I can hardly see how this will generate meaningful or intellectual discussion, and I can definitely not see how this is news for nerds or stuff that matters.
1. Because most geeks own cell phones
2. Because most geeks have an interest in wireless communications
3. Because most geeks have an interest in stopping spam
In addition, I think the discussion thus far has been very interesting. If it bothers you, you can filter it out in the preferences.
I use the Yahoo text messaging for once a month reminders (give dog meds, hair cut, wife ovulating,etc..) I'm not sure you can create a yahoo account to discontinue the messages since the messages are probably created by your cell number's predecessor's Yahoo account.
Does Yahoo even have access to this kind of information? "Yeah, can you guys look up my cell phone number among your thousands of subscribers and modify that subscribers text messenging preferences?" That sounds like a nightmare of a problem.
I suggest changing your Cell Phone number. That's your easiest solution.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
I'm sure Yahoo! would happily ignore your bill
IANAL. Check with a lawyer, but you'll probably find the following to be correct.
Legally, they CAN'T ignore such a bill that you choose to send them.
Under US law, it is ILLEGAL for Yahoo! to send unsolicited advertising messages to a mobile device, such as a pager and the like. You can bill them up to $500 for EACH MESSAGE. So if he sends them a bill, legally they MUST PAY.
Send them a message via certified snail mail, return receipt requested, explaining that the owner of the phone number has changed, and demanding immediate removal of your phone's details from the database. Tell them that failure to comply by a certain date will result in them paying penalties of up to $500 per message sent to your mobile device.
And if the messages don't stop, send them a bill for $350 for each message, with a warning that failure to pay by a certain will result in court action being taken against Yahoo! and $500 being payable for each message.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Wow.. Can you add any more variables to that case? Illegal immigrant, no license, nursery without sufficient funds to cover costs, ...
I never said it would be a one-day, zero expense endeavour, but it certainly doesn't involve a Columbo-esque plot or a potential international incident.
Moreover; press attention would do wonders for this case. Yahoo! doesn't want their name smeared rightly across the headlines for something they could settle for $200. In all likelyhood they'd pay the money to get rid of you. They'll waste large amounts of legal funding on cases that matter.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
>> Yahoo or MSN do not receive notification when someone cancels their phone account.
yes and no... nobody tells yahhoo or MSN that the account is cancelled, but at the same time I know that most telcos (or at least the one I work for) have a policy that phone numbers must remain disconnected for a minimum of so many months before the next person gets that number (in our case I beleive it is 6 months)
so while they won't get a message asking to cancel it, they should get a bunch of bounce messages if they are paging every day as was indicated by the orriginal poster. and I would think it would be reasonable (note I didn't say expected... I know better) to remove an address that has bounced every day for 6 months or more.