Yahoo Shopping is a flippin’ joke — apparently their motto is ‘we don’t have a clue and we don’t give a crap’.
Over the weekend, I came across an item that I was looking for that was sold by a ‘Yahoo endorsed’ online vendor. I called their customer support number, only to find that it was disconnected. I called the ’24 hour customer support number’ only to find it was the mobile phone number of a rather irate woman who disavowed any knowledge of the web site. Not looking good. I even tried to place a order for a token item just to see what would happen. Predictably, I received a message back from Yahoo about an ‘invalid merchant’ when I submitted the order.
Trying to be a good Internet citizen, I then sent an email to Yahoo pointing out that I was unable to get in contact with the vendor and it looked as if the web store was, in fact, defunct and asked them to confirm the status of the merchant. After all, you would think that they would be interested in weeding out dead sites to maintain some semblance of trustworthiness. Apparently not. Here is the response I got back:
Hello Rich,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Shopping.
Yahoo! Shopping is an online service that helps you find products you
want from a variety of merchants with online stores.If you have a suggestion, request, or question for a particular merchant
featured in Yahoo! Shopping, you should contact the merchant directly.Regarding your request, please direct all suggestions, requests and
questions to the merchant directly. At the stores web site, you can
find contact information in links such as “Info” or “About Us”.Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Shopping.
Regards,
Theo
Yahoo! Customer Care
[Emphasis added] So the solution to my issue of not being able to contact the vendor is to (wait for it) contact the vendor directly. So either the person who responded to this request doesn’t even possess a fundamental grasp of the English language or they simply don’t give a wank. I can only imagine the round and round I would have to go through if I ordered something from an endorsed vendor and had an issue. No thanks.
Here endith my first and last attempt to do business with a Yahoo endorsed vendor (or Yahoo for that matter). You have been warned: any shop you encounter under *.stores.yahoo.net is suspect and you should find a safer alternative. Yahoo, everything about you sucks. That is why your bloated, Flash-encrusted carcass is overdo at the dot-com dead pool and will no doubt arrive shortly after Microsoft acquires and then kills you off.
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