Lycos Deletes Emails and Says 'Too Bad!'

Billosaur writes "The Consumerist brings us a tale of woe which is apparently generating outrage in some quarters, along with death threats. Lycos email customer Whitney did not access her account for 30 days. This resulted in Lycos deleting over two years worth of email. It isn't so much Lycos' policy that's the problem (though that requires some scrutiny), but the response of the 'manager of all of Customer Service,' Mike Jandreau. Apparently he's not too service oriented, as his exchange with Whitney shows. And since this story was posted to The Consumerist, apparently Mr. Jandreau has become the focus of some unwanted attention. Of course, his final response to her might have something to with it: 'I'm sorry, no one here has any intentions of helping you with anything. I am the manager of all of Customer Service. There is no one higher than me that you will speak with. You violated our policy, which is, despite what you say, completely clear. No one is holding anything hostage. Your e-mails have been completely deleted, and no amount of money can now restore them.'"

Comments

Re:Customer Service

[drinkypoo]

There are a couple of rules which keep customers happy, and keep them coming back:

This person is not a customer; they used a free service, didn't like the terms, lost their data, and then refused to follow the terms and pay to get the data back after not logging in for 30 days.

Do you want customers like that? That only cost you money?

* The customer is always right * You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar (or muriatic acid) * Make sure your product doesn't suck

First of all, the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is a huge pain in the ass and you just want them to go away and never come back. At the same time, you don't want them to go running around and telling everyone that you suck, because that's not good for business from the people who actually make you money.

Second of all, make sure the product doesn't suck? I got news for you, hotmail and yahoo do the same thing. It's standard for free email. The product was ostensibly no worse than anyone else's.

This is a clear-cut case of a user IN THE WRONG. Or, well, it is assuming what we're told about the TOS is correct. Following on these assumptions, It's also a clear-cut case of a manager who is an asshole. But it doesn't make the user any less wrong. Pay, or fuck off. It's just that simple.

I have a hard time with this kind of reaction from Lycos, and other companies. How can they get away with being assholes?

They're offering a free service. People will use it just because it's free. Incidentally, and anecdotally, the only person I ever knew that used free lycos email was happy with it.

I worked for Lycos as a contractor for two months. In that time, I survived two rounds of layoffs, in which they lost half their workforce. I didn't survive the third.

Doesn't sound like they "lost" it to me. Sounds like it was temporary and they were done.