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.'"

The Mail Nazi!

[Anonymous Coward]

No mail for you!!

Outrageous

[Intron]

I would demand a full refund for this free service.

Killed Server

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we made short work of that server.

corporatespeak

[udderly]

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.'"

Sounds like someone needs to brush up on their corporatespeak.

Exchange Link

[TranscendentalAnarch]

The link for the exchange has already been /.ed, anyone got a mirror?

What do you expect?

[RandoX]

Sounds like the Lycos servers wolfed them down.

Re:Only Losers Use Free Webmail

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Of course, no company like Lycos ever makes money on said free email accounts. They don't get any revenue from advertisements or anything, so driving customers aways like they're bubonic rats won't have any effect on corporate revenue. Aggressive reduction of your customer base is always a good business model.

That said, Lycos is pretty currently pretty out front about the need to check mail every 30 days. I don't know if that was true when the subject of this signed up.

What?

[Colin Smith]

You mean this isn't how customer support is supposed to act?

p.s. The customer isn't always right, all too often the customer is wrong, stupid and loud with it.
 

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking HUMAN RIGHTS here people.

He is the CSOH!

[C_Kode]

Customer Service Operator from Hell!!!

Sweet! Give him a website! :)

What surprised me most

[snitmo]

Lycos still existed?

Re:Outrageous

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Sounds like eBay's customer service ;)

Re:What do you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sounds like the Lycos servers wolfed them down."

Oh, you sly dog.

Does Lycos exist ?

[alexhs]

Well, apparently, at least their e-mail service doesn't exist anymore...

Re:What do you expect?

[dreddnott]

All this biting sarcasm sounds so cynical.

Re:Free service

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering what advise those people have when someone considers using a free operating system?

RTFM, n00b!

</jk>

Re:Only Losers Use Free Webmail

[Azarael]

Yes, but if that were the case it would be hard to assume that the positive response would out-weigh the negative. The one thing I know for sure is, that I something like this happened in the small, little known start-up that I work for, the perpetrator would not touch the ground on the way out.

How high is he?

[curtlewis]

There is no one higher than me that you will speak with.

No one higher, eh? I guess he must be referring to drug usage because I'm sure he reports to someone.

I'm not aware of any company where the Manager of Customer Support is equivalent to CEO/Chairman...

Linux Customer Support Hotline

[Penguinshit]

1-800-DEV-NULL

Re:Exchange Link

[atezun]

The link for the exchange has already been /.ed, anyone got a mirror?

Yeah, but I'm not promising you're gonna like what you see.

Poetic Justice

[arth1]

I found this snippet, posted by the very same MJJ a few days ago on moviesnobs.net:

"Not sure what happened, but earlier this week, our server had a major hiccup, which caused the site (and our other sites) to dissappear for a day and a half. We also lost e-mail for that time, which was a royal pain."

Poetic justice?

Re:tupiche

[Sponge Bath]

... to be cruel for personal amusement

Celebrity Deathmatch Referee: "I'll allow it!"

Re:The real Mail Nazi!

[computational super]

You think Lycos' customer service is bad? I just got an e-mail from Bank of America about how they need me to click through this link and verify my client information, and I don't even have an account there! I messed them up, though - I clicked through and input my account details with my actual bank account with Washington Mutual. That ought to confuse somebody in processing!

Re:The real Mail Nazi!

[Firehed]

umm, that's not really a serious post. You just got *wooshed*.

Re:tupiche

[Ken D]

Well for one thing, you get the feature of not being able to do restores... thus not needing to do backups either! This saves an incredible amount of work and responsibility/pressure. Someone wants something... you say "Sorry! No Can Do! Have a Nice Day!"

The ability to restore seems to me to be a mission critical enterprise feature. Apparently a feature that Exchange completely fails to deliver. Perhaps you should upgrade to a system that works. Because I can just see the CEO appreciating needing to ask your most important customer to resend an important email because he accidently deleted it and it can't be restored. Really inspires confidence and a sense of pride in a job well done.