SBC Yahoo destroyed Pacific Bell dial-up
Written: Dec 20 '03
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Pros: NOTHING
Cons: EVERYTHING
The Bottom Line: I am stuck with this service, avoid at all costs.
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| bonniesayers's Full Review: SBC Yahoo |
When this stinking Gateway Astro arrived via UPS back in December of 1998 I used Pacific Bell as my Internet Service Provider. It has stayed that way with no real problems until earlier this year, March of 2003 I received an email that I thought at first was junk mail. Luckily I decided to open it before deleting and there was important information pertaining to my ISP changing to SBC Yahoo. This was my only form of communication, nothing via the postal service in writing notifying me of this change.
I have dial up with the cost since inception at $21.95 via my telephone bill so I can pay for all these services with one payment. There was no discount with the changeover, although I have noticed the price was lowered to $15.95 for new customers. I hate this system but would feel better paying that amount than what I paid for with decent service through Pacific Bell.
I followed the directions from the email and received errors twice before the download worked. I did not want to use the SBC browser or the home page so only had to deal with the dial up numbers. I had to choose from a whole list of numbers and then had to call them to make sure they were local. All of a sudden my dial up connection had a new partner - SBC YAHOO Connection Manager, the most annoying blue box on my computer. I do not want to communicate with this confusing system. Before I had the convenience of taking kids to school and returning to my computer to finish reading or writing. Now SBC YAHOO Connection Manager made the decision that my computer was idle for too long and disconnected me. I did not ask for this and I certainly do not appreciate this disservice to a customer.
There are errors constantly with this system. Besides the fact that when the system is down across the board the Connection Manager that knows nothing comes up and tells me my password is not matching and two seconds later it is telling me the port is already open. I have no clue what a port is and what it being open means. I just want to be connected without interruptions or freaking errors every single day. During the times that the system is down I have called the number as stated on my phone bill. It seems they printed the bill with the wrong number. The first time I dialed in I got so many options but the one I wanted. The customer service representative I spoke to told me he kept his Pacific Bell DSL and thought that I had an option of not switching to SBC Yahoo. He was not sure and gave me wrong numbers to call and switched me to non-working numbers.
Finally I have a number that works and each time the system is down there is a recording telling the caller that they are working on getting back online. This happens at least once a month, if not more. When my system is dialing I have inserted my password with the box checked to remember it for continued use. This works two out of five times. The other times there are **************** across the section where the password should be, obviously errors again on the part of SBC YAHOO.
Each time an error occurs the SBC YAHOO Connection Manager pops up with more buttons for me to press indicating whether I want to report the error to help them or close. I choose to close each time because the system is so slow to begin with and all I want is to be connected to the internet, not to follow a stinking menu that never quits. I want that thing off my computer.
I get emails from SBC YAHOO on a weekly basis now informing me of things I do not care about. I just want a flawless system with the SBC YAHOO Connection Manager to vacate the premises. A couple weeks ago I had repeated errors with my Outlook Express. Back in the days with Pacific Bell I could easily switch over to Netscape and retrieve my emails with ease. Now that is not available and I used the SBC YAHOO browser and mail program. This offers 25MB of mail with a confusing home page that never is able to retrieve my mail on the first try. It does offer a local TV guide and movie times for my area.
As of today each time I open my SBC YAHOO mail program I get this page that wants me to download new software to enhance the experience. This includes a pop-up blocker and revised side-bar. There is also a button to check off whether you use the mail for business or personal or both. The other option is to just update the home page. There is no way out to bypass these options so I have been opening a new window to get my mail and closing that one.
The current spam guard seems to work fairly well, although they placed a survey I ended up receiving a ten-dollar gift certificate through amazon with my order arriving yesterday. I would suggest checking the bulk mail folder before emptying it because my mystery shopping offers get deposited there as well.
The SBC YAHOO browser is not the greatest. It has closed down almost daily for the past week, probably why they have this latest update, which forces you to download. The print button does not work, the pages load very slowly and when you click on a link in an email it freezes your computer while taking a long time to open another window. This is much different from Internet Explorer 6.0. The options on the bar for SBC YAHOO are games, shopping, mail, news, finance, movies, sports, music, geocities, photos, etc. There is a button to customize this to add briefcase, auctions, astrology, chat, pay direct, parental controls, groups, maps, people search. I will probably update mine after I download the new page.
When I had the problems arising with my Outlook Express I remembered once before deleting some old files so I went to do that and ended up deleting the Outlook Express. I then downloaded some backup for the program and then tried the SBC YAHOO LIVE HELP. This was a very slow process and not at all similar to the eBay Live Help. It just so happens that the day I used this help I had been on the other help twice. The chat window was slow with the representative very short in answers and did not complete the call and disconnected us before I was satisfied and there was no offer of a transcript. I never did get an email asking me about that experience and felt it was very poor in comparison to other live help features I have used with success.
All around the SBC YAHOO is a poor excuse for an internet service provider. As the only adult in my household with little experience in this area I feel stuck in this situation. Somehow I did get the Outlook Express back but the errors are constant whenever I try to open an email. Therefore I have been solely using the SBC YAHOO and have to sign out for two other email accounts I have with regular Yahoo.
Today I wanted to check the dates of the email I received from SBC YAHOO before typing this review up. I opened up Outlook Express and had 394 messages download. These are the same messages I have read and responded to in the SBC YAHOO account. Why were these messages coming through in another program? Then I used the help feature and still not really sure what took place, but was shocked to find after deleting all those emails and then opening up my SBC YAHOO to find that email account is now EMPTY.
This is the most annoying and aggravating system I have encountered. Even the help page for the SBC YAHOO Connection Manager is filled with many errors to look up. I just did update my homepage and it only took a few seconds. Now I am given a choice of colors for my home page with the preview of my inbox larger and higher on the page. The sidebar has the non-working print page and now the front page has a print button as well as a search feature. The side bar also has the search that I have used on occasion.
The whole process of dialing a number to get connected to the internet takes several minutes and the SBC YAHOO Connection Manager is a waste of time and space on my computer. While it is there it is hard to continue typing in Word, even when I move it because sometimes it will not move. If custom number is displayed you have one more step before dialing begins because it wants to know if you would prefer to change to that number. I never change it from Los Angeles to custom number to begin with. There are so many glitches this whole experience drives me nuts. I would not recommend this to anyone who has knowledge, let alone those who are out of the loop such as myself.
So my options for now are to sign up for Adelphia, but I have no clue how to set up the modem myself and to change email addresses at this point in time is not an option I want to deal with. Then again if the problems persist with the Outlook Express and the poor customer service and help functions with SBC YAHOO than I see no point in continuing with this internet service provider. All my email is gone and if this does not get rectified soon I may be starting the New Year with Earthlink because there is no way I would try MSN. What else is available in the Los Angeles area??? Run far away from SBC YAHOO.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 21.95
Version Number or Year: March 2003 downloaded
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Epinions.com ID:
bonniesayers
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
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