Angry Customer‘œThere is only one boss. The customer.’ – Sam Walton

Since I’ve been on a customer service rant lately, why not continue the trend? I’m not the only one’¦ there are others at Queercents that have an equally low tolerance for lousy service.

Here’s my latest experience. This week, on several occasions, I’ve been unable to access my Yahoo! Mail. I receive an Error Code 5 which is the email equivalent of your desktop going to the dreaded blue screen. A prompt allowed me to send a message to customer care. Of course, I didn’t see this reply until my email was working again:

You can always try hitting the refresh button, closing some windows or making sure you are only signed into 1 account. However, if you are repeatedly experiencing these errors, please reply to this message and a Customer Care agent will respond within 24 hours.

Here’s a posted message from another disgruntled customer:

Finally, why am I asking a public forum, when I need to send this message directly to Yahoo?! OH…OH…OH!!! Better yet, what’s the point of emailing me the answer… I CAN’T GET TO IT!!!

Get the picture. Now I’ve been using Yahoo! Mail for years. I’ve never upgraded from the Classic version which is 100% free and even includes unlimited storage. Who needs Gmail?

So here’s the question’¦ As a customer using a free service, do I have rights to working and uninterrupted service? Sure I can upgrade to Yahoo! Mail Plus for $19.99 a year, but even with this package they don’t advertise an 800 number for support and for some reason. I suspect the problem would persist.

What free services do you use? And are you able to make demands like a paying customer? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts below.