Despite the decent first quarter earnings it announced yesterday and all the progress it claims to be making in closing the search marketing gap with Google, Yahoo still has plenty of advertisers unsatisfied with the return Yahoo gives them on their search marketing dollars. One of them (name redacted) sent us the correspondence below from Yahoo Search Marketing, which he received after closing an account and requesting a refund of the remaining $375 balance.
Imagine his surprise when a Yahoo customer service rep informed him that a refund of nearly $9 billion was waiting for him! Luckily for Yahoo shareholders, he only found a credit for the original $375 when he checked his account.
And this is the same company advertisers are supposed to trust to be able to calculate what their minimum bids on search ads are going to be.
From: Yahoo! Search Marketing
Date: Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: Case #1604XXXXX
To: XXXXX@gmail.comApr 17 2008 09:36 PT
Hello AXXXX,
As you requested, we have completed refunding $8962385800 to your VISA ending in 7134. Depending on your bank, you should find this refund reflected on your next credit card statement.
This transaction is also reflected in the Billing Transaction Detail Report, available in the Reports section of your account. You can find this report by doing the following:
1. Log into your account at the following link: https://login12.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/adui/signinXXXXXX.
2. Click the Reports tab.
3. In the Financial Reports area, click Billing Transaction Detail.Sincerely,
XXXXX Smith
Customer Solutions
Yahoo! Search Marketing
LYKE OMGZ, THIS IS SO NEWS WORTHY.
the rails guys are still pissed, obviously.
You sure the person who sent you the correspondence didn’t put these numbers in themselves for link bait activity?? If not, then Yahoo! is a class act!
Yahoo once over refunded me $3k.
I contacted them a few times about it and was eventually told to simply “not worry about it”.
Not only is this not news-worthy, but the headline is misspelled and hard to understand.
I requested a refund of $50 and they told me to fu#$ off.
these comments are all too short and easy to read. can someone please start uploading video comments?
I’m disappointed with Yahoo! as a user, can I get my wasted time back?
This isn’t news-worthy
FREE BLAINE COOK
That would certainly wake you up during a morning email-reading session.
I want to see a VISA card with a 9 Billion limit, April’s fool is over
In a related story, this same guy got charged a late fee for renting, and never returning, Superman 3 and Office Space.
I think it is really newsworthy
JBug
You’re equating customer service to giving a refund. If a customer’s service is great, there should never be a refund.
This was an honest mistake, the rep probably pasted in the user’s account ID rather than the $ value. These emails are put together manually, not through a mail merge or other automated system. It has nothing to do with how the company calculates their min. bids or any other metric.
@voice 2.0:
I think you’re equating sincerity with sarcasm.
@nem - I think you are giving Erick way too much credit.
@nem
Have you ever worked in Customer Service?
@12 (Raul Riera) - I want to see a VISA card with a 9 Billion limit
Maybe Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, etc.?
Contrary to many negative posts - I found that organic traffic from yahoo is about 3 times more converting, than from other sources, including Google.
And that was after analyzing about 2 million of raw log file records for the client.
Gleb
Yahoo is for saddles!
There is a difference between Techcrunch and Valleywag. I’d appreciate if the difference remained.
damn, i just wasted 2 minutes of my life. about to post a video comment soon.
This news and post are so bad that it should have been blogged by Duncan Riley….
9 billion to a single company ? If a single company was advertising for 9 million, how much did it profit from ?
if this kind of news come in this blog then very sonn tech crunch is going down
This is telephone number of somebody.
I dont think this Yahoo’s mistake. Customer care rep. would have Ctrl-C-Ctrl-Ved some body’s telephone number rather then the amount. Dont be surprised if this is the phone number of the same person who got this email or may be this is the number of the girlfriend of the CSrep.
This looks like a mail mapping problem rather than someone actually thinking of returing millions:
It’s the 10 digit account number. Simple as that.
This isn’t news. Those customer service e-mails are generated by a form the rep fills out. I can’t imagine where the number for the typo came from.
great job! NOW you’re writing like valleywag…
Taking an honest mistake and running with it is so pathetic! Here’s an idea…. POST SOMETHING THAT’S ACTUALLY WORTH PEOPLE’S TIME.
“FREE BLAINE COOK”
Perfect response to the whiners…
I’d have been pretty upset after going out and spending a few mill on some homes and a jet
Good news for the shareholders