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.'"

Re:Exchange Link

[fyoder]

google cache [72.14.253.104]

Re:tupiche

[HomelessInLaJolla]

> To read the headline you'd think the company just deleted someone's emails for no reason

Okay. You win a point. There was a reason: to be cruel for personal amusement.

Re:The Mail Nazi!

[operagost]

No. That law was passed to keep companies CURRENTLY UNDER INVESTIGATION from deleting email, not EVERY COMPANY AT ALL TIMES.

Thanks for keeping the dubya-bashing level high on Slashdot, though. I was afraid all the leftist freaks were on vacation simultaneously.

Re:tupiche

[UnrefinedLayman]

I doubt this is true. There are probably more than a hundred different archives, tarballs, and tape backups from which they could salvage most, if not all, of the poor woman's e-mail.

I would argue that that is untrue. It's also not necessarily economically feasible to do so. For example (which has no bearing on how anyone else does things; this is only an example):

We run an Exchange system for about 19,000 people over eight backend Exchange 2003 servers. To restore a mailbox from one of those servers without affecting the production system (which requires coordination from three financially separate groups), we must:

• Put up a new domain controller in a three domain forest
• Make a backup of the DC
• Move it to a private network without a connection to the domain
• Put up a new Exchange back end server on the private network
• Restore the information store
• Export the mail to a PST file
• Restore the backup of the DC and put it in DS restore mode
• Return the DC to the network, allow replication to overwrite its db
• Demote and decommission the DC

Total time: estimated at 60 hours of work (20 hours, 3 people).

No one, and I mean NO ONE at any level of the organization gets mailboxes restored. Backups are for disaster recovery only and are recycled after two weeks. If someone loses all their mail then waits thirty days to tell us, it's no longer possible to do the work, even if it's ordered by the organization head.

Now imagine Lycos, providing a free email service for many thousands more users. How long do you think their retention time for backups is, when they provide no positive affirmation that they can restore the data? How much time and hardware (servers, backup devices, backup media) do you think they'd be willing to put into restoring free email? How many FTEs would they have to dedicate only to that task? How likely would you be to go through 60 hours of work to restore a peon's mailbox in your own organization after you specifically told them what to do to prevent it from being deleted in the first place?

I feel bad for the person that lost her email and think the customer service guy's a douche, but I also don't doubt that Lycos is not in a position to restore the mail even if they wanted to and wouldn't fault them for saying No even if they could. That's reality.

Bullcrap

[Cervantes]

I call shenanigans.

From her own writeup (google cache [72.14.253.104]) she admits that she'd been using the service less and less. From the sounds of it, she hadn't been using it at all. But she was dumb enough not to forward her uberimportant emails to another account.
And then, looking at the way her email quotes are cut, I think there was a lot more there that she chose not to share with us.

Having been in the managers position before, I think he was harsh, but she's spinning this to make him look like a dick. She probably demanded to talk to the highest ranking C*O in the state. He didn't say "I'm the highest", he said "I'm the highest that you will be talking to", and I've said the same thing (in different words).

I have the feeling that Lycos tried to explain to her, patiently, that her account had been deleted in line with the terms of service (and the disclaimer on their homepage [lycos.com]), and that restorations were only offered to people who were Plus (or Premium or whatever the fudge it was), and she went off the handle, accused them of "holding her emails hostage", used bad language, and got all snotty with them. At that point, they probably didn't want her business, I wouldn't either.

The bottom line, is she did not log in within 30 days, as the homepage clearly says you have to do if you want to keep your account. Lycos told her what she had to do if she wanted her email back, she decided she didn't want to do it, said some bad things to them, and so they decided to tell her to go fuck herself. I say, good on ya, Lycos. Yes, customers deserve to be treated with respect, but it's gone too far in some cases, where privileged little fuckwads think they deserve everything they want, and anyone who says otherwise is mean, mean, mean. I think it's crappy that she's calling this guy out, selectively editing the conversation to make them seem like dicks, and especially crappy if it's true that people are starting to harass him.

Were I him, I'd post the ENTIRE email chain online, not just her edited version... and lets see how sweet and innocent she really is.

Re:The real Mail Nazi!

[x-caiver]

<whoosh>
There went the joke, flying by just inches over your head

Re:Outrageous

[StrongAxe]

Do you use Yahoo Messenger, or any other services (like Yahoo Groups)? It might consider accessing those with the same account name as the same as logging in.

Re:The real Mail Nazi!

[paeanblack]

Now you might argue that she is a customer that thats hardly justification. A more compelling argument is that its his job to never lose his cool and always be polite. So he'll get fired over this. Which is a shame because in my book he tried to do his job and dealt with an angry customer the right way. People don't like it when your firm and clear with them and want things sugar coated. She wasn't worth it.

She also doesn't know how to get things her way.

Never let your first point of contact with customer service escalate the call if the problem is actually your fault. Keep trying different avenues of approach until you hit the soft spot. Push for empathy, and don't blame anyone or anything. Use phrases like "I've really found myself in a bind here, and I'm not sure who can help me out." Note the important implications of "found myself"="could happen to anyone", "in a bind"="not quite life-or-death", "I'm not sure who"=easy handoff for the stonewallers, and "who can help me out"="obviously someone can help me". There will always be some eager trainee that doesn't know or a jaded short-timer that doesn't care about corporate policy. Let them be your hero. If possible, target the opposite sex.

If you still can't find a way in, then politely escalate the issue. Never mention how many times you contacted them or what the other contacts told you. That's the difference between desperation and nagging.