Pretty much agree with all you have to say about Yahoo! but from what I've seen they're on a par with Google. I've seen many folks battling to even get hold of

Pretty much agree with all you have to say about Yahoo! but from what I've seen they're on a par with Google. I've seen many folks battling to even get hold of a human being at Google to have account issues rectified. I'd approach this in the following way: - Sign up for an account with a company that specializes in email. I use Fastmail myself, but there are (many!) others. - Purchase a domain relevant to their business and set up an email on that. joe@momandpop.com, that sort of thing. - Update whatever refers to the old address (websites, flyers, business cards etc.) so if this happens again, you can switch providers but keep the same email address. - Get a decent password manager application, and teach your parents to use it. I just use Emacs + ccrypt to store my secrets; they'll probably need a simpler solution but there are many available. - Continue working on Yahoo! to regain control of the Yahoo! email address, assuming that's still important (e.g. customers will try to contact them on it). Try calling back at different times, email / online chat (if available) or even send a solicitor's letter. Realistically, though, I think that email address is gone for good. If there's one important lesson to learn from this, it's that important email addresses should be on a domain you control, not .yahoo.com, .google.com, etc. etc.