One of the big drawbacks of companies merging is that suddenly you have one less way to recover your account should something go wrong.
Last year my Yahoo account suddenly rejected my password, the password I've had for years. The auto-sign in would show me mail going to my account but it wouldn't accept the password. Yahoo wanted every single last bit of information from when I opened the account, over ten years ago. Fuck them.
Well tonight I wanted to get into my Flickr account. Oh, whoops, Yahoo merged with them, so I can't access that, either. I can no longer access pictures of myself online. I hate these people. All the correspondence to Yahoo basically ends with, "Sorry, but we need information you entered ten years ago which, even if it were accurate, you probably don't remember anyway, like what your zip code was when you registered."
If anyone wants to take a crack at hacking my yahoo or flickr account, the account name is Thothanon. The password is anybody's guess.
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I guess the real lesson in this is that using the internet for things that are even mildly important is a very stupid thing to do unless the service you are using has a real physical location. Otherwise you'll get cut-and-pasted answers back from customer service reps who barely even read your complaint. They won't be able to deviate from the company line even if you're willing to send them a photocopy of your ID and birth certificate.
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Update: This is actually kind of funny. Yahoo must have closed my account or something, because it no longer recognizes my account name. But the Flickr account still exists. The only way to sign in is with a Yahoo ID that no longer exists. I hate the fucking internet sometimes.
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