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I want to use Flickr again but I don't have access to my Hotmail(!) account anymore. I don't even recognize the area code for the number they have on file for

I want to use Flickr again but I don't have access to my Hotmail(!) account anymore. I don't even recognize the area code for the number they have on file for me. After exhausting those two options it sends you to the yahoo help website. The first page asks for your yahoo email address. I don't have a yahoo email address and one was never associated with my flickr that I am aware of. I've tried but have no clue how I can access my own photos again. I'm a customer just sitting here begging to use their service again and they don't want me to.

jfktrey 10y ago
To be fair, it seems like it would be very difficult to guarantee you own the account without access to your email or phone number.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  They wouldn't even give my parents' account back when I offered to send pictures of their drivers license / social security cards / passport in. All because they forgot a dumb "secret answer" question. Yahoo has beyond terrible customer service.
  - cat199 10y ago
    You're a customer too? How much ad space do you purchase? This might help things if you mentioned it to them...
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      My parents paid for the yahoo mail plus for years. But Yahoo didn't care at all. They offered no way to get the account back.
    - wolco 10y ago
      I'm the product lose me and the customer will have nothing to match the ad against
  - dchest 10y ago
    How is this a terrible customer service? Sending easily faked pictures of documents is not a proof of account ownership. It's your (or your parents') responsibility to remember password or security answer, don't blame customer service for that.
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      A human is behind an account. There need to be ways to recover an account when certain measures fail with non-tech savvy folk like my elderly parents. Yahoo offered no way to recover the account.
      - iamatworknow 10y ago
        And those same methods you mention are how people get "hacked". Everything that would make it easier for your parents to recover their account also make it easier for someone to social engineer.
        csin 10y ago
        The H word is such a lazy excuse. Techies overestimate how much the common folk give a shit about getting hacked. 99% of the population are not celebrities. I know a bank that purposely reduce their Internet banking security. To cater for specific elderly customers who constantly forget their password. They are not going to force their customers to walk into the bank everytime. These accounts are at a risk of getting hacked. It's called a tradeoff. As a bank, do you want customers or not? Do you like money or not? As for the Yahoo situation. If they gave a shit about customer service: they can accept copies of drivers licence/passport signed off by a justice of peace.
        joatmon-snoo 10y ago
        And that bank is probably in violation of PCI DSS.
        iamatworknow 10y ago
dchest 10y ago
Sorry, but it doesn't seem to be their fault, it looks more like the usual case where the user doesn't want to take responsibility for their actions and blames customer support for it.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Yahoo has a really crummy recovery system compared to the big 5. If things really go wrong, Google will let you recover your account provided authorized forms of identification -- obviously forgery is an issue and Google is very thorough with regard to this (like checking if the account is still being used by the regular IPs or has gone inactive.) Yahoo on the other hand basically tells you "go fuck yourself." I literally had a Yahoo agent curse me on the phone after I asked for the supervisor. And then she hung up. I gave up on recovering my parents' yahoo account. Yahoo deserves the demise it suffered. Unlike the big 5, its processes are kludgy, even when it comes to customer service and people stuff. Good riddance.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
  There is no customer support! I can't even see any way to contact them or email or call flickr customer support from the pages they show me.
- kharms 10y ago
  I've lost a flickr account because yahoo deletes emails that don't get used.
- jameskegel 10y ago
  It felt good to see this on HN, and it felt better to read it in bold, dark, black text.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  Sorry but it does seem to be their fault. They made their service unusable for years as explained in the article and in many comments here. It's not uncommon to change email address over a period of year, and that's for places where we tend to keep addresses around China is a totally different approach. With the lack of option to recover access to your account you are now locked out of your data. This would not happen with other third party service provider hosting your data. But as always do have backupS and do not rely on third party for your data. Host it yourself and have a copy on those services. At least if you care about the data.
jlarocco 10y ago
Flickr's (and Yahoo's) account handling is terrible, but your story isn't an example of that. You don't know your password, don't know the associated phone number, and can't check the associated email. You're lacking every credential required for access, so WTF do you expect them to do that wouldn't also be a huge security loophole? If you can call and get access, then anybody could call and get access, so they're erring on the right side here as far as I'm concerned.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  How could it not be ? Yahoo's handling of flickr push user away for years. do you remember the password of that email account you have not used for 5 years ? good not try to log in and discover that this address has been deleted or reclaimed by hotmail for being inactive. Do you still have the phone number you had in 2005 ? chances are you have changed several times. I don't even know most of my current passwords, I never give my phone number for privacy reason (still have about 2-3 telemarketers calls a day for having given it a few times in the past) and I usually can't check the associated email because I don't even remember which temporary email address service I used to register with your service to protect myself from the spam and reselling of my address. I've learned a lot since the 90's and I trust the web services for exploiting, reselling any piece of info I may give them so everything is single use or fake, it has proven very effective at keeping annoyances at a very low level. Funny that you would mention a potential security issue when yahoo's credentials and user data has been breached, twice.

jfktrey 10y ago

To be fair, it seems like it would be very difficult to guarantee you own the account without access to your email or phone number.

goldenkey 10y ago
They wouldn't even give my parents' account back when I offered to send pictures of their drivers license / social security cards / passport in. All because they forgot a dumb "secret answer" question. Yahoo has beyond terrible customer service.
- cat199 10y ago
  You're a customer too? How much ad space do you purchase? This might help things if you mentioned it to them...
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    My parents paid for the yahoo mail plus for years. But Yahoo didn't care at all. They offered no way to get the account back.
  - wolco 10y ago
    I'm the product lose me and the customer will have nothing to match the ad against
- dchest 10y ago
  How is this a terrible customer service? Sending easily faked pictures of documents is not a proof of account ownership. It's your (or your parents') responsibility to remember password or security answer, don't blame customer service for that.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    A human is behind an account. There need to be ways to recover an account when certain measures fail with non-tech savvy folk like my elderly parents. Yahoo offered no way to recover the account.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      And those same methods you mention are how people get "hacked". Everything that would make it easier for your parents to recover their account also make it easier for someone to social engineer.
      - csin 10y ago
        The H word is such a lazy excuse. Techies overestimate how much the common folk give a shit about getting hacked. 99% of the population are not celebrities. I know a bank that purposely reduce their Internet banking security. To cater for specific elderly customers who constantly forget their password. They are not going to force their customers to walk into the bank everytime. These accounts are at a risk of getting hacked. It's called a tradeoff. As a bank, do you want customers or not? Do you like money or not? As for the Yahoo situation. If they gave a shit about customer service: they can accept copies of drivers licence/passport signed off by a justice of peace.
        joatmon-snoo 10y ago
        And that bank is probably in violation of PCI DSS.
        iamatworknow 10y ago

dchest 10y ago

Sorry, but it doesn't seem to be their fault, it looks more like the usual case where the user doesn't want to take responsibility for their actions and blames customer support for it.

goldenkey 10y ago
Yahoo has a really crummy recovery system compared to the big 5. If things really go wrong, Google will let you recover your account provided authorized forms of identification -- obviously forgery is an issue and Google is very thorough with regard to this (like checking if the account is still being used by the regular IPs or has gone inactive.) Yahoo on the other hand basically tells you "go fuck yourself." I literally had a Yahoo agent curse me on the phone after I asked for the supervisor. And then she hung up. I gave up on recovering my parents' yahoo account. Yahoo deserves the demise it suffered. Unlike the big 5, its processes are kludgy, even when it comes to customer service and people stuff. Good riddance.
JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
There is no customer support! I can't even see any way to contact them or email or call flickr customer support from the pages they show me.
kharms 10y ago
I've lost a flickr account because yahoo deletes emails that don't get used.
jameskegel 10y ago
It felt good to see this on HN, and it felt better to read it in bold, dark, black text.
bigbugbag 10y ago
Sorry but it does seem to be their fault. They made their service unusable for years as explained in the article and in many comments here. It's not uncommon to change email address over a period of year, and that's for places where we tend to keep addresses around China is a totally different approach. With the lack of option to recover access to your account you are now locked out of your data. This would not happen with other third party service provider hosting your data. But as always do have backupS and do not rely on third party for your data. Host it yourself and have a copy on those services. At least if you care about the data.

jlarocco 10y ago

Flickr's (and Yahoo's) account handling is terrible, but your story isn't an example of that. You don't know your password, don't know the associated phone number, and can't check the associated email. You're lacking every credential required for access, so WTF do you expect them to do that wouldn't also be a huge security loophole? If you can call and get access, then anybody could call and get access, so they're erring on the right side here as far as I'm concerned.

bigbugbag 10y ago
How could it not be ? Yahoo's handling of flickr push user away for years. do you remember the password of that email account you have not used for 5 years ? good not try to log in and discover that this address has been deleted or reclaimed by hotmail for being inactive. Do you still have the phone number you had in 2005 ? chances are you have changed several times. I don't even know most of my current passwords, I never give my phone number for privacy reason (still have about 2-3 telemarketers calls a day for having given it a few times in the past) and I usually can't check the associated email because I don't even remember which temporary email address service I used to register with your service to protect myself from the spam and reselling of my address. I've learned a lot since the 90's and I trust the web services for exploiting, reselling any piece of info I may give them so everything is single use or fake, it has proven very effective at keeping annoyances at a very low level. Funny that you would mention a potential security issue when yahoo's credentials and user data has been breached, twice.