Lycos, Inc.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: Details can be found on complaint form -Request #****** . I paid for an ********* website through lycos.com (www.******reunion.*********.com) and tried to introduce a simple response form for my family reunion on January 20. I've been trying to get assistance from lycos customer service since then (23 days ago) and the form still does not work. this is upsetting the plan of having a simple online form for my family members to complete. Most details can be found on the complaint log but this will summarize some of the problems -First, the form disappeared from my page which triggered the first request for assistance - This problem resolved itself. -Lycos advised me that the form was working but that gmail was blocking responses. they said to open a lycos.com email. - I did but the lycos.com email initially did not accept any emails from any sources. It started to work but the form was not forwarding responses. -Lycos advised me to redo the form from scratch to ensure there were no hidden html tags imported from Word - I did. Did not work -Lycos advised me to direct the form to gmail because lycos mail spams its own forms. did not work. After rebuilding forms and trying different email accounts, now when you press the submit button, the form never affirms that the information was sent. It seems to forward to gmail, but the sender never gets acknowledgement that the form accepted the information. This is unacceptable. The customer service reps (I've communicated with two by chat and one by phone) seem to understand the problem, but when they interact with the "engineers' I seem to get a quick unacceptable response which focuses the problem back on me. Lycos is quick to close out the complaint with no resolution. It seems so simple for a customer to put up a form. This is impacting my ability to provide services to my family in anticipation of the family reunion. The latest form is on the following page: http://*************.*********.com/online-registration.html

Desired Settlement: - make the form on this page work: http://******reunion.*********.com/online-registration.html - at least a partial refund for the time the website was not fully functional (so far approximately 1 month) - committment to take steps to ensure I'm properly serviced for my account

Business Response: Dear Mr. ******-
Thank you for contacting Lycos.com Customer Support. We have taken the time to review your complaint and would like to sincerely apologize for the fact that you stand here today working to resolve an issue that our support team has not been able to provide you with 100% satisfaction on. I would like to advise that you have made us aware of a training issue that will be addressed immediately.

Though Lycos works with many vendors and has many product offerings, our internal support agent should have worked with you to inquire further about the way in which you intended to set up all of your Lycos accounts prior to responding in full. Lycos Mail should not have been the first option recommended to you as there are some limitations with the way that it interacts with certain components of the web form that you have built.

Secondly, our internal support team does not offer a service at this time that would incorporate the alteration of or replacement of any code on behalf of a customer. We do hope that no one ever advised you that we were able to assist with this aspect of site development.

At this time, it is clear that our services cannot meet your needs and I would like to apologize again on behalf of the entire Lycos team though I have refunded your PayPal account in the amount billed ($32.45). We are limited in the amount that we can refund you so we are unable to process an additional refund (bringing your total up to $40.00) per your request. We can simply provide you with a refund in the highest amount that you were billed.

If you believe that we can offer you additional services at any time, please contact me directly at ***********@lycos-inc.com. I want to personally advise you that we have taken your case to our internal development team and will be using it to further develop our product offerings and in training seminars.  Thank you for taking the time to help us grow.

Regards-
***** ** *****
Customer Service Manager
Lycos Inc.

Consumer Response: I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint.

I do appreciate that the company has offerred to refund the full amount I paid for the website and I stand corrected as to the price referenced in the response. 

Based upon the response, I think Lycos is not fully understanding what I was asking for in this situation.  I am using the  site builder tool and am attempting to use the form creator function from the tool.  I started from scratch and avoided cutting and pasting as advised by the rep to avoid accidentally importing any hidden codes from microsoft word.  My goal is not to add any customer code or perform any extraordinary function other than for the form to allow visitors to input the information and for the form to be forwarded to an email account.  With the page I just created (http://******reunion.*********.com/online-registration.html), I have followed all of the previous instructions provided to me.To simply refund $33 leaves me with 150 family members coming to the website that has already been announced to them only to find that they cannot register for the event.  I am saddened that Lycos is choosing not to make an honest attempt to fix this and to just refund the money.  My request was for a partial refund for the time was lost, and a repair of the problem.  Instead I am being offerred a full refund and a kick to the curb.  I don't know why Lycos is not attempting to fix this problem with a function of a tool they offer to customers.  Their resolution is not going to help me when my family members start accessing the URL I promised them and not finding the functions there.  In refunding the $33 , is the company now suggesting that I have to close the website or that I keep the website or ads reappear.  Either of these choices will not help me in the situation I'm already in.  I would have to find another web service, with a form creator, build another website, and then somehow contact family members to visit the other website in time to submit their deposits by our Feb 22 deadline.   Instead, I was seeking that Lycos fix the problem that's causing their web building tool not to function.  This would be much more valuable than the $33 now being offerred by lycos.  by the way, I only input a monetary amount of the original form because it seemed that the form used by the BBB required that input.Bottom line - Make a good faith effort to fix the problem instead of buying out of the problem by offering money. ******** ******* ******  

BBB's Final Determination: After reviewing the position of all parties, BBB determined that the business made a reasonable effort to address the complaint. However the consumer remains dissatisfied.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: This company advertisers ad-free email service if you pay an annual fee. I paid the $19.95 annual fee via MasterCard about 3 weeks ago. Since then, I have continued to received pop-up ads prior to entering my email sign in and password. Not only that, I am receiving 10 second advertisements prior to being even able to enter any information on the email service page. This is the heighth of deceit and fraud. The company has responded via their service department that the only ad free part is after you've signed in. That is not what is advertised nor what I paid for.

Desired Settlement: Since they can't be trusted to handle this issue, I do not wish to continue with their service. I want the email account closed and my $19.95 refunded to my credit card. They will forever have a black eye with me and I intend on spreading the word far and wide about my experience with their service.

Business Response: Hello,

Thank you for this email and inquiry. We are addressing this problem now. We hope to have a fix in place shortly to resolve the ads that are appearing for paid users of our mail system. I can keep you posted through our ticket support system to the progress of this matter, if you wish. I do not have an ETA at this time, but we are addressing this matter. I am sorry that you are seeing these ads. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Thank you,
******** *****
Lycos Customer Support Manager

Consumer Response:

I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint.

I do not accept the resolution that LYCOS is proposing.  Since this morning I relogged in to the email site, they have changed the verbiage to allow for pop-up and ads to appear prior to entering the inner sanctum of the email.  I did not pay $19.95 for this kind of service, and demand a refund and closure of the email account, **********@lycos.com. I will not accept any other resolution, and am also pursuing action for fraud with the Washington State Attorney General's Office within 48 hours if this is not resolved to my satisfaction. LYCOS is committing fraud. 

 

 

Business Response: Hello,

I have gone ahead and closed the account ********** and refunded the charges of $19.95 back to the credit card on file. You are still seeing ads when you log into Lycos Mail, because we have not finished working on a resolution to this issue and have no yet put a fix in place. We are still in the works of getting this resolved for our paid members.

Thank you,
******** *****
Manager Customer Support

Consumer Response: I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint.

I do see the company has refunded my money.  This resolves the situation in my mind.  Hopefully they will be more forthcoming and honest with their subscribers in the future.  When I pay for ad-free email, I don't expect to see pop-ups or any advertisements.  Don't know what they are thinking, charging for email and continuing to run advertisements.  Why would anyone pay for that?

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.

BBB Comments: The consumer indicated to BBB that the complaint was resolved.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: I have not been able to access my Lycos email account ******************** since May 7th, when I began receiving a canned message upon log in attempts. I have been trying to contact Lycos Support by completing Help Tickets every day since then. Lycos has not responded nor fixed the problem.

Desired Settlement: I am requesting that Lycos Support address my issue and get my email account working again. Thank you.

Business Response: Hello,

We see that the user for the ********** account opened a ticket with our support team on May 12th, ticket number ************. I have looked into there issue this morning. Their account was suspended by our mail provider for suspected spam which is a violation of our Terms of Service. I am not able to enable their mail account at this time. We have sent the user information on what they will need to provide us with and once this is verified we will restore their services with Lycos. Please let me know if you need additional information regarding this complaint.

Thank you,

******** *****
Lycos Customer Support Manager

BBB's Final Determination: Business offered a resolution. Consumer did not pursue further with BBB and the matter was assumed to be resolved

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: I have not been able to access my lycos email for 3 days. I filed 6 tickets with customer service and never received a response. I gave all the proper information and have yet to hear from them. I have lost contact with people regarding a vacation rental and have had business contacts complain they haven't received responses from me. Every time I log onto the email it says that there are security issues. There's no phone number to call. I don't know how to get to my email so I now have a secondary email address.

Desired Settlement: access to my email

Business Response: I checked the customer's account and verified that access to mail now works. It appears that our mail provider had mistakenly locked the account for spam. I apologize for the delay in responding to the problem. The trouble ticket was routed incorrectly at first, delaying action by a customer support representative.

Consumer Response: I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint.

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: When I attempted to log into my email ****************** by going to *********************** I entered my account name and password and instead of being directed to my email, was sent malware as further explained in my email to mailtransition. ************** has been reported as distributing malware as part of it’s login and university security has been advised of the situation and will take such measures as they see fit, because I have no administrative rights on the machines used her. I am very limited in what I am can determine

Desired Settlement: Since I don’t want to subject another computer to this attack Lycos should set my account to forward all mail to *************** (this is a standard email option in the Lycos system) and prepare a zip file of my mail usable by common email readers like they did in May 2004 when ********* was discontinued. Because I don’t know the file size, it should be placed on a file sharing site and a link sent to *******.***. I marked delivery because the service offered is not being delivered. It was delivered before the date problem occurred as shown above

Business Response: There was an instance of malware being distributed in an ad on our network which some Lycos Mail members may have seen. Lycos removed the ad immediately upon it being reported to us by a third party. Lycos proactively vets companies and ad creatives for problems such as this, but in this case one slipped through. We are currently engaging with several companies to prevent this from happening in the future. Lycos takes all such instances very seriously. 

Your account should be fine now ... but we did enable forwarding to your alternate email address as requested. We can not do the mail back up in the manner you suggest, but our technician enabled IMAP/POP access for the account, so you use a third-party client to download and backup your mail.

However, I strongly suggest you do log in to your account and retrieve your old mail that way. I have tested your account and it is OK. You can decide if you want to keep the account going forward ... the choice is yours.

Sorry about the inconvenience ... hope this helps. As always, contact our customer service department if you need further assistance.

Consumer Response:

Better Business Bureau:

I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # *******.

I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have
determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues
and/or concerns in reference to complaint # *******.
[If you are rejecting the business's response please enter your
rejection comments here.] Business did enable a means of recovering my
email but did not provide any means of testing it. As explained more
fully in the attachment, unfortunate defaults in the email retrieval
program along with lack of documentation for it resulted in the inbox
mail being lost from the lycos server before the defaults could be
found and changed. They should have a backup of this data and I
requested that it be restored. Their response to the request is "Dear
***** *****, Solution has been rejected and requires a revision." When
I ask what revision could result in data recovery, I am again told "
Solution has been rejected and requires a revision" without further
elaboration. It is Lycos that caused the problem and it should be
within their ability to recover from it. Computer problems are not
uncommon and now days lack of documentation is not uncommon. A
reputable computer oriented business will have backups in place to
recover from these problems. In light of events subsequent to the
original complaint, my actionable settlement is for the lost inbox data
to be restored and for POP access to continue 5 days beyond
notification to me by email at *************** that it has been
restored.

Regards,

***** *****

 

 

Business Response: We checked into your account ... there were no messages as you say. While I can't say positively why, I did speak to an engineer and had your inbox restored. I verified that you now have over 2000 messages in your inbox dating back to 2004, as as recent as November 14th of this year. I hope that takes care of all your issues.

Consumer Response: [A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

Better Business Bureau:

There have been numerous problems with Lycos over the years. While these problems can not be undone, I am satisfied that Lycos has permitted me to take my accumulated mail off their system. This is a great relief and it is clear that it could not have been done without the help of the BBB. While I will not do business with Lycos in the future, I consider complaint #******* closed.

Regards,

***** *****

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: I have been a long time user of Lycos mail since middle or high school (I cannot recollect the exact date/yr). Lycos had at one point forced its users to change their usernames before, but I think I was able to retain my original data from the account before. I'm not sure what year that was and if that's the starting point or not of what used to be my current email account. For all due accounts, I'll say it was when I had my username with Lycos changed when I was in my senior year of high school (that I think I do remember). Anyhow, I was able to login and off earlier today (7-16-11) until this afternoon when I realized I could no longer login without setting up a new paid account (at about 5:30pm, Pacific Time). Not only was Lycos trying to have me set up a paid account, they were asking that I set up a whole new account...not even giving the option to renew the previous account that was in use with all those important contacts and emails that are a part of the now inaccessible account. Just as another customer has pointed out in the reviews section on the BBB, I too was not notified of this change to have ample time to remove/retrieve saved emails and very important info from schools, business, and other personal info and contacts. Nor did I have time to also notify schools, business and personal contacts of the changes, to no longer email me at the Lycos address they have on file. So, any new and important emails that have been sent to my Lycos address are unobtainable now. I had become dependent on the accessibility to my account for years as a fundamental form of communication. I tried clicking the help button at the bottom of the Lycos Mail home page but it only gave me an error page that stated, "Invalid Querystring!" ************************************************************** The help button was of no help at all. I could not even send them an email, it was the same page: ************************************************************** I am very upset and greatly dissatisfied with their business conduct! It's simply unethical business practices for Lycos to allow. How dare they make the boot on us who've used the free Lycos mail without providing ample notice of the changes that would have significant impact on its users?!

Desired Settlement: I would like to have the opportunity to access my previously free Lycos accounts for at least 3-5 more days to make the necessary steps for transitioning to another free email service by means of retrieving/saving important data only accessible on Lycos and to provide appropriate notice to my contacts of the changes, too.

Business Response: This past weekend Lycos experienced an outage to its Mail product registration system ... an alert was posted as soon as we were aware of the situation. An unfortunate side effect was that some free users were asked to sign up for a paid account, which was not necessary. We apologize for the confusion. The outage was fixed and all customers should have access to their emails as before.

Consumer Response:

Better Business Bureau:

I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #******** Note, however, for all the days I checked with Lycos Mail this past weekend, there was no notice of the outage that was claimed to have been posted. I thank Lycos anyways for the correction to the problematic matters discussed previously.

Regards,

******* *******

 

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: I signed up for a yearly billing plan at $11.40 a year and I was charged $11.98, I assumed the difference was in tax. This company has been billing me this amount monthly for the past two months. I called customer service to settle my dispute and was told I ordered a yearly plan of $109.45 at $9.95 per month. I asked for a copy of my receipt because I was absolutely sure I had not made such a great purchase on something I wasn't even sure I could use. I had not received an email statement or confirmation of my purchase. The agent did confirm my email address to be sure the correct one was on file, and I have still yet to receive any information from them. I cancelled this month on the first day of the billing cycle after I had realized the charges and they would not even refund me this month.

Desired Settlement: I would like the money I was overcharged refunded in the past two months, for a total of $23.90. Or I would like the receipt stating I did sign up for the yearly plan and it in fact was my fault, including the charges and tax made to my bank.

Business Response: We confirmed that the customer had a monthly plan ($9.95/mo plus $2 domain privacy). The account was closed and the customer was issued a refund $23.90 (2 x $11.95).

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: I joined an e-mail website which purported to offer free e-mail. Then they turned around and want to charge me for access to my e-mail!!! I must underline the fact that Lycos said : You will not be charged a fee. This is tantamount to the drug dealer who offers you free drugs at a party and then once you're hooked makes you pay for it. Your mail is not something to be fooled around with.

Desired Settlement: Lycos should not be charging for something they said was free. Particularly as it involves mail which is considered a public service. Desired outcome ? Continued free service as initially advertised. For my free service I am already putting up with advertisements , buying trend trackers ( I think there are at least 12 of them ) and spammers which I think Lycos gets a sizeable income from.

Business Response: Lycos experienced an outage of its mail product last week and some customers were sent to a sales page. This was not intentional. The customer has a free account and there is no attempt to charge that person a fee. We apologize for the confusion.

BBB's Final Determination: Business offered a resolution. Consumer did not pursue further with BBB and the matter was assumed to be resolved

X

Additional Notes

Complaint: Lycos has clear terms and conditions listed on the website for e-mail users of the site mail.lycos.com. On 09/06/10, I logged into my account and all of my e-mail was deleted without any notice. I requested for lycos to restore my e-mail messages since I did not exceed the storage limit.

Desired Settlement: I want my old e-mail messages back. Even if lycos is on the account updating something or changing something, they cannot delete old messages. When I had any changes put on the account in the past, my old messages were retained.

Business Response: Lycos has been migrating mail customers to a new product, Zimbra, for the past several months. Along the way there were some problems, and as a consequence some old mail has been delayed. An alert explaining this was set up on the log in page. I checked this person's account in particular and made sure all mail was restored. Lycos apologizes for any inconvenience.

Consumer Response: Better Business Bureau: I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #*******.        

BBB's Final Determination: Consumer accepted resolution offered by the business.