careful of Yahoos Sponsor listings

We have been stung...

[Dave_Hawley]

Just a warning about Yahoo's sponsored listings. About 6 weeks ago I paid to have our site in the sponsored listing spot in our catergory. After filling out all my payment details I hit the 'confirmation' button. A page then came up to say the payment had failed ..... Soooo I went back through and tried again, but it still failed. On my third attempt it worked! We got our listing as advertized. 2 weeks later we check our bank statements and Yahoo had billed us 3 times, i.e they billed us for the 'so called' failed listings.

It gets worse! We sent them 3 emails and they finally replied to one which had ONLY the standard "you can check your account deatils online here...." I then cancelled the sponsored listing via my control panel. But guess what! I still have my listing showing after the date it stated I would be removed AND they charged us for anonther month!

It gets worse still. I have another listing in Yahoo and thought I would try a sponsored listing there (I know I should have known better). After clicking the 'confirmation button', guess what? it failed! This time I did nothing more. I got no confimation email and have NOT got a sponsored listing. But, yep.. you guessed it, Yahoo have billed us for the non existent listing!

Arrrrhhhh!

Dave

[2_much]

Yikes Dave, what an awful experience. Have you tried calling their billing department? Their pains in the @@@, but if you threaten them with chargebacks, it motivates them to help you. Just be prepared to contest it, they won't be nice about it.

[Dave_Hawley]

Hi 2_much

Yes I did try that and got myself even more frustrated. We are in a different time zone you see. I phoned them at 8:00AM our time, which should be about 4:00PM their time. After listening to the recorded info about push this button for that and this button for that, I chose the appropriate button. I then another 2 choices and picked the appropriate number. After about 5-8 mins the phone finally rang, I was all reved up and ready to go! Then I get a recorded voice telling me "we are sorry, you have reached us outside of business hours...... our hours are 6:00AM to 5:00PM" I nearly threw the phone out the window! Why on earth couldn't this message be played to start with?

I will try again this week, guess I will have to get up earlier.

Dave

[2_much]

Or stay up late :)

Whenever I call corporations I always hit "0" until I get a person, it almost always works.

Good luck.

[Dave_Hawley]

RE: Or stay up late :)

There's an idea! I'll wait until I come home drunk and full of bad manners :o)

Dave

[Robino]

See this thread...

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Dave_Hawley]

Oh dear, looks like I'm in for a big fight with Yahoo :o(

Thanks Robino.

Dave

[DaveAtIFG]

In the US at least you can dispute any charge, credit card or direct debit, and let the bank fight it out with Yahoo for you. They will need to produce proof that the charges are legitimate, or reverse them. Oz may have similar laws... Check with your bank if uncertain.

[Dave_Hawley]

Thanks guys. I'm not looking forward to this. We had a similar issue about 5 years ago when I first set up a Web site with bunch of crooks at homesteadprofessional after cancelling our account via phone, email and letter, they still kept taking out a monthly charge. We had to jump through a LOT of bank hoops to get back our money and stop the amount coming out.

Might be a good one for my wife to handle :o)

Dave

[chiyo]

I'm sick of those push buttom #, (music) beep beep (music) push button repeat ad infinitum. If a company wants to do business internationally they should detect international calls and put them on some special list. Its just impossible to do business with these guys. On the other hand ive found OV when i had cause to call them 1 year ago very understanding of international call rates. Your post just reminded me Dave! I can udnerstand your absolute frustration with this new digital age, where personal service is paradoxically a bye-gone skill.

[Dave_Hawley]

Well, I'm totally shocked. Yahoo sent an email today to say they would give us back our $250.00, YAHOO!

Dave