newbie DESPERATE for domain help!
 

Hi everyone ... newbie DESPERATE for help here.

I purchased several domains from yahoo and hosted them using their starter hosting packages.

Everything was fine for months then I found myself locked out of my account. 3 days and 14 emails and two days on the phone (at international rates) being put on hold and transferred from department to department and being told conflicting stories (at first it was my account had been compromised and "someone" other than yahoo had closed it, then it was yahoo did it due to breach of TOS)
I'm told they cant reactivate my account.

No one seems to be able to tell me how I can retrieve my files (I hadn't backed them up *sob*)
or access my domains to use with another host
(All email contact for my domains was my now nonactive domain email account and I believe the domains are "locked". )

Anyone able to advise me? I seem to have lost everything, the files were bad enough, but how can yahoo keep my domains, I paid for them?
Miss Lucy

post at least one of the domains and we can start looking - my feeling is that they may have been registered in yahoo's name and not yours.

Alex

*smiles* thanks Alex.
www.xxxlucyxxx.com
my understanding is (and trust me, total techno dummy here) that I am listed as Organisation and as the Admin, but that yahoo is listed as the tech. The email for Admin contact was the email address attached to my domain admin@xxxlucyxxx.com (I have no access to it)
Im fairly sure I have no hope of recovering my 9 months work (I know what the hell am I doing with sites when I don't know enough to back up my files) but I really want to salvage my domains if it is possible.

Hiya to a fellow Aussie :D
I see your domains are registered through MelbIT.. good thing!
When they were first registered are you sure you werent sent a registry key? Some kind of email for them which surely couldn't be sent to the domains you were registering.
If you don't have this contact MelbIT and tell them your problem, I know there is a way to resolve it. I used to freelance for a dev co that often had this problem with new clients who used dodgy co's before.
This is the addy: http://www.melbourneit.com.au/
Tell me how you go..
Oh and is it maybe against yahoo's TOS to host adult content? I wouldnt know as I have never hosted with them.
Also I would demand Yahoo give you access to retrieve your files.

Hey Natalie ... anouther Aussie, wow .. you don't come accross many :)
I didn't deal with MelbIT directly, yahoo did, I signed up here http://order.sbs.yahoo.com/ds/Choose...=BMG0&.src=sbs
they did everything ... I just paid. All the info went straight to my free yahoo email account that they disabled at the same time as the rest so I have access to nothing :(
I still can't get over the fact that a company as huge as yahoo can treat paying customers like this. Im sending an email to melbourneit now, thanks for the link... keep your fingers crossed for me.
Miss Lucy

oh... and I have tried everything to get sense out of yahoo.. pleading and demanding lol...they wont even tell me what TOS I breached and more than anything Id kill for my files back...Im just a humble erotica writer, for a techno dummy building them was hard work
Miss Lucy

Hi misslucy

You can try the waybackmachine and pull the source code -

http://www.archive.org/

Thanks Calliope... I took a look, they have no listing for any of my sites, I wonder why that is? Thanks for the idea anyway :)

And Natalie, I emailed MelbIT. Their first reply they said I had to take it up with the reseller (yahoo) they didn't answer my second email but I found a number and called them today. As soon as I mentioned Yahoo they said I had to speak to a particular person who handles their accounts. I left a message on the mobile number she gave me as she instructed, but he has yet to return my call... hopefully I'll hear something soon! Im starting to feel cursed lol

Oh thats a small step forward I think.. I will keep my fingers crossed for you lol

Hi Lucy,

If all else fails you may be able to get the info via a long winded method.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...n&ct=clnk&cd=3

Is googles cache of your root index, right-click and 'view source' and you will see notepad or similar open up with your html of the page *plus google's text at the top of the page, which you need to remove*.

Then you can go to each link, copy the shortcut and enter that in google, then 'see googles cached page' so by copying the destination of your enter link and putting it into googles search brings this page:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ml&btnG=Search
and below your page info you will see:
Show Google's cache of www.xxxlucyxxx.com/EROTICA-sitemapINDEX.html

Again, right-click, view source and save, removing googles top table. Next link copy, repeat. It's a drawn out process, but it should give you a fair chunk (and maybe all) of your site's html back.

Best of luck with it :)

Miss Lucy -

You could try to transfer the domain to another registrar - It looks like you are the registrant so you should be able to acknowledge a transfer.
I can't see if the domain is locked - that would be the only gotcha. You should be able to update all the info at the domain with MelbIT and get the DNS updated to your new hosting, remove Yahoo as any kind of contact. It is registered to you not Yahoo.

TOS:

(a) upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
(b) harm minors in any way;

I would think B would include adult content. |huh

Hey everyone.

Thank you all so much for the advice.

Melbourne IT have come to the party and I finally spoke to the guy who handles yahoo reseller accounts. He advised me to put in a claim for them to re issue me with my registry keys for the domains so I am waiting on a response to that. (does any one know how long that process should take?)
Fetish1 : yes, ignorance is no excuse, I just signed up on the recommendation of a friend. I didn't intend to end up with porn sites, it was just a place to post my writing to begin with, and kind of exploded, I will never again skip the TOS ! it was only at the last second they changed their story to yahoo deactivating due to breach of TOS though,for the first two days they told me my account had been compromised and "someone" other than yahoo had done it. I purchased 8 very adult sounding domain names from them and arranged hosting without anyone saying anything. I know it was 100% my responsibility to read them, but I honestly didn't have a clue until this happened

Jel what a fantastic idea. I am really lucky, one of my readers had my whole content up until Dec stored on his computer, I only just found out and just got the files back today *grins* but for at least one other site that will save a lot of headaches. Unfortunately the rest were brand new and not listed yet.

Still if all goes well I have learned a HUGE lesson (and intend to hang around here and learn a few more the easy way) and ended up with more than I expected a few weeks ago when it seemed I had lost the lot.

So again a huge thank you to all who tried to help, I really appreciated it as Im aware it was a situation caused by my stupidity *blushes*

Miss Lucy