Being Honest
| Monday, October 16th, 2006 | --jr |
This isn't a cool thing per-se, but it's something that we see a lot of.
You/your friend/someone you know has a Yahoo! Account. For various reasons, they didn't feel comfortable providing "real" information. The account is phished, lost, or otherwise compromized and ask someone "inside" to help fix it because you forgot what the information was you entered.
The answer is almost always the same, in those cases: "Sorry, you're SOL."
Understand that there's a good reason for that. See, we've got a pretty darn good privacy policy, and frankly we have a lot of pride in that. We've gotten a fair amount of heat about just how protective we are of your private info in the past, but let's face it, would you really want your stuff available for anyone who can just say they're you?
The reason we ask for what we do is because most folks can remember their birthday, and a lot of folks really don't move around all that much. If you don't feel like giving us your birthday, that's fine, but for heaven's sake, be consistent about what fake birthday you use! Subtract a year or add a day and remember that!
Also, be sure to keep your account information up-to-date. It's what customer support uses when they're trying to make sure you are you and not someone else pretending to be you. Also, be sure to look for the secure stamp, and set it if you haven't done so already. That way, you'll know that we're who we say we are and you won't have to worry about being in this pickle to begin with.
Sure, it may not be a cool tip now, but I hope this helps you keep your cool later.