I'm a longtime user of rental music - I've had subscriptions to Rhapsody, Napster, Virgin, even Urge. So naturally I was pretty excited when Yahoo! created what looked like a decent music service that I could subscribe to at a huge discount - $5/month included the ability to download to my player, a service I was paying Rhapsody $15/month for.
Unfortunately, the proprietary Yahoo player software sucks. I've had a huge list of problems that include:
- The player will frequently refuse to play music that is available on Yahoo!’s site.
- The player sometimes will play full tracks in 30 second preview mode.
- The player will sometimes refuse to start at all.
- The player sometimes crashes in the middle of play, giving an error message and shutting down.
And guess what? To make this low-end service profitable, Yahoo! doesn't have phone support - you have to enter problems via a web interface. I submitted quite a few problem reports, and never got a satisfactory response – never received an answer that fixed any of my problems. (Uninstall and reinstall. WTF?)
I thought I was making some headway, when I received the following email, indicating that perhaps Yahoo! was going to start taking my problems seriously:
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CODE:
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That was on July 9, and it formally marked the last time I heard from Yahoo!, despite zillions of follow-up inquries on my part.
In addition, Yahoo operates a brag site called Yahoo! Music Blog. They provide additional resources for contacting customer support. I have sent multiple emails to these addresses, and have never received a single response.
This kind of thing drives you crazy, of course. But fortunately, when you are done banging your head against the wall with a vendor who won't talk to you, there is one additional option: contesting the charge with your credit card company.
After taking the time to document my woes with Yahoo!, my Visa provider apparently agreed that I wasn't being treated properly. The copy of the letter below is victory enough for me:
And now I'm back to Rhapsody. I've used their phone support twice. Once because they have the hideous requirement that you call in to cancel the service (Hello, Mr. Retention Specialist!) and once with a real problem, which was resolved by the support person.
Update
Engadget reports that this service is going to bite the dust real soon now, with users being shifted over to Rhapsody. In their article they claim that this is due to basic weakness of the subscription model, but I think all Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribes know the truth: Yahoo! was inept.
21 users commented in " Yahoo Music Unlimited - you get what you pay for "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackHey, quit messing around and go to www.emusic.com. You can prove how hip you are to the kids.
We're on spring break. Hope everything's going well up nort.
-The other texas nelsons
i've been a subscriber to emusic from time to time, it's okay for a month or two, but after you've mined the back catalog of all the labels you've never heard of, listening to the acts you've never heard of, it does lose its excitement.
most of my music purchases these days come from half.com!
Hey Mark, thanks for the info. I'm being forced to convert from MusicMatch to Yahoo. It seems I'm have the same problems and no one to contact. Knowledge base for Yahoo music sucks. I'm now going to cancel al together and find another music provider. Thanks a bunch I thought it was just me.
aj
Hi al,
Although the monthly outlay is a bit higher, I have been pretty satisfied with Rhapsody. They do have real tech support people, and if you are patient and explain your problem, they eventually resolve it.
I'm not using Rhapsody-to-go though, and using portable players is where you tend to get into trouble.
Apple always says they won't launch a music-rental service because there's "no demand" for it, but I bet at least some of that reluctance is due to the difficulty of supporting a rental model using DRM.
I had Musicmatch for years and was generally happy with the service. Unfortunately with the required conversion to Yahoo there was nothing but problems. First the "temporary network error" which I finally solved by doing all their proposed fixes and then reinstalling the program... then the player refused to play anything, the "unresponsive" error message. Tech support sucks, finally cancelled because its wasn't worth the headache.
$71.88 and I am stuck in the 30 second preview mode.
No help from Yahoo.
Man, am I pissed.
I feel your pain Bill! About all you can do at this point is go to your credit card company and start the painful chargeback process.
To make money on this pathetic service, Yahoo! basically has to run it with no support - no human beings anywhere in the process - so if things don't work, you are out of luck.
This Yahoo Music Yuak Box really is bad. I did an upgrade from MusicMatch Jukebox and did everything but upgrade the account, as I under no circumstances want info on the net.
After this my regular Yahoo messenger cannot connect from the computer. From other computer it still works with the same account so there is nothing wrong with the account.....THIS IS REALLY BAD PROGRAMMING AND IS NOT TO BE CONSIDERED BEING CALlED A BETA RELEASE. Bad Bad Yahoo.
I feel your pain, Mr. Pedor!
i had been using the free musicematch for as long i can rember didnt do the up grade and vere pissed when in 2006 i bought the life time free upgrade and i thank yahoo is very sad and always has been only thang i have found there is bs. and a way to talke to my friends how use there messenger and a free e-mail and there free games witce i look for the to start charging for some time real soon i thank the ones how bought the free ought to get there money back or a free life time member ship to yahoo music to sell cause some of have class and no time for bs problems yahoo can give you just wanted to give out my imput
yahoo cude spoil a wet dream as thay did a good music player
hello
i gotta a question and i wonder if anybody have a anwer for it... i had to unistall my unlimited music junkbox. Because i had an issue with my computer, however when i treid to instal the program back again i was asked for my credit card # agian.. so WILL I BE PAYING $74.88 AGAIN... which is the annual bill that they already charged me on my creaditcard or what?
thanks
@quartinho239:
I would be seriously nervous about entering my credit card again.
When you install the program, you should ONLY have to enter your credentials: user name and ID.
I would think there is a pretty good chance you just created a new account with new credentials, and charged your credit card for it.
Check your online statement and see if this is the case, if it is, notify Yahoo immediately that you want to reverse the charge.
[...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]
I agree...their customer service sucks. My older son rents music from Zune Marketplace for $14.99/month (same price as Yahoo Unlimited) and you get to actually SPEAK to someone! I now have an issue with my younger son's MP3, with his subscription to Yahoo Unlimited (which we have had for 6 months with no problems) and they now tell me his device is not compatible. This was AFTER being sent to a Senior Representative. Hmmmmm....wonder why it was compatible for the past 6 months???? Think they are just putting me off??
My daughter was just charged $143.88 for a YEAR IN ADVANCE for this service even though she's tried numerous times to cancel it without success. It keeps booting her off without completing the transaction. Finally, after her bank called to notify us that she was overdrawn, I got involved. I canceled it from my computer but too late to avoid the charges. NOW, they refuse to refund her a penny of her money and have done virtually nothing to correct the problem she has in getting it to work. What she bought is useless now since it won't play anymore. They are nothing but scammers who take customer's money & then leave 'em stranded. Can't wait to see how much they'll enjoy having the details of their mistreatment of her plastered all over college campuses across the nation. The price of the services they refuse to refund will NEVER make up for the millions they could have made if potential customers weren't turned off by their lousy treatment of teenagers & the theft of their hard earned money.
i think rhapsody is a good deal. i can hear all the music i want without having to own it . i think its a great deal
I'm having huge problems with Yahoo! Music. I signed up for a buy-one year-get one year free deal when using a mastercard. Well, one year into the two year subscription, they charged me 71.88 AGAIN for a "renewal" fee! I have been trying and trying to get my money refunded. They admitted it was a billing error and that I should not have been charged for the second year, but they refuse to refund my money saying it was an authorized charge. What?! I never authorized that charge -- it just showed up randomly on my credit card bill. Horrible. Stay as far away from Yahoo music as possible.
@sephys:
The good thing is that at least your credit card company will eventually give the money back - but they'll make you work for it!
I've been pretty happy with Rhapsody, but there are days when I think it would just be easier to get all my music from the torrent.
Wow! Does your problem sound familiar! I actually left Yahoo! myself and went to Napster. Unfortunately, I didn't have the vigilance to contact my cc company. Having read your situation, I wish I had!
I wish I had a dollar for every time I thought, "Yahoo Music Jokebox sucks."
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