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?

Comments

Contact your telco

[dorward]

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.

Re:I would...

[BrK]

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...

A *somewhat* related question...

[Micah]

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".

Re:Not to be a pain in the a**...

[exhilaration]

Disable this category in your preferences and stop bothering us.

Re:I would...

[mr. methane]

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.

Re:I would...

[B.D.Mills]

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.