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The Yahoo Mail search bug: One year later

A year ago today, I flagged a Yahoo Mail search bug. The bug apparently can't be fixed judging from my inbox of complaints from frustrated Yahoo users over the past year.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

A year ago today, I flagged a search bug in Yahoo Mail that basically nukes efforts to find anything. Yahoo fixed my account after a few complaints and a blog post.

I later followed up to address all of those folks that were emailing me about the Yahoo Mail search bug.

Since then, I have received about five emails a week (with spikes in some periods) about the Yahoo Mail bug. I'll forward a few. Drop an email to see what the deal is. Apparently, Yahoo can't fix the bug.

It's a shame because some of these folks have had Yahoo Mail accounts forever and don't want to leave. They do because of shoddy service. We'll let one of our readers illustrate what happens. This history lesson landed in my inbox six days ago:

Larry,

I just wrote you but figured I'd add this since I've gone back to verify how often I've contacted Yahoo with no assistance and no response. It's even worse than I remembered. These are MOST (not all) of my Live Chat tickets and Help Requests in the past month:

August 07, 2010 10:40 AM re: Yahoo! Customer Care (KMM169321962V2527L0KM)

August 07, 2010 11:07 AM Auto Confirmation - Your Yahoo! Mail support request was received (KMM169322821V4386L0KM)

August 09, 2010 3:55 AM Auto Confirmation - Your Yahoo! Mail support request was received (KMM169371998V51291L0KM)

August 09, 2010 12:41 PM Auto Confirmation - Your Yahoo! Mail support request was received (KMM169387900V82826L0KM)

Aug 11, 2010 aa;52:50 AM EST Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK42601616096X Support Case: 87324279, Mail

August 13, 2010 4:15 PM Re: Searching or Organizing Mail (KMM169406009V24568L0KM)

August 22, 2010 11:57:34 AM EST Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK42601638392X

August 23, 2010 3:24 PM Auto Confirmation - Your Yahoo! Mail support request was received (KMM169900650V2211L0KM)

August 24, 2010 1:22 PM Auto Confirmation - Your Yahoo! Mail support request was received (KMM169934026V81271L0KM)

The key is that I've been very patient, have not made threats or been demanding. I've been very courteous to every LIVE agent. And still I have no fix and, worse, NOTHING from engineering except their ridiculous auto responses that PROMISE a follow-up within 24 hours.

This guy has Yahoo Mail as a business account and is even pondering a lawsuit---he's a lawyer. Can't say I blame him. Then again he's probably better off just getting a new email account.

Our frustrated reader continues:

Sorry to take up more of your time, but I figured I'd let you know what's happening and why I feel this is not your normal complaining consumer making a mountain of a molehill.

There are a lot of mail search molehills out there that may add up to Yahoo defections.

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