Has my Yahoo Mail account been hacked?
Q
I recently started getting messages asking me to confirm the password for my Yahoo Mail account. Upon doing this I was told the email address didn’t exist. I contacted Yahoo’s UK customer service, who said the account had been suspended because it had been compromised by hackers, and it was impossible to reinstate it. They then tried to sell me a new email service for £100, which I hurriedly declined. The only piece of information I divulged was my date of birth, which was allegedly for security reasons. I have since set up a new email account with a different provider but is it normal to cancel an email account like this without warning? Was all this above board? Chris Cleverly
A
Yahoo has suffered multiple serious security breaches over the years affecting hundreds of millions of user accounts, most recently in 2016. However, it’s possible that some scammer working through an illegally obtained list of hacked accounts from that breach has only recently got around to targetting yours. The only Yahoo Mail account that costs money is Yahoo Mail Pro, which costs £2.69 per month, so not even close to £100 a year.
Yahoo is now owned and operated by Verizon UK, but customer support has been outsourced to an overseas call centre on the number 0808 234 5306, which is a freephone service. If that’s the number you called then you can be reassured you did indeed talk to a genuine Yahoo representative. Otherwise, you were probably talking to a scammer.
However, note that support is available only for the aforementioned Yahoo Mail Pro service, and costs an additional £4.80 per month. We suppose it’s possible that you talked to a legitimate Yahoo rep, who was trying to sell you both Yahoo Mail Pro and live tech support, which would add up to about £90 per year. But it’s unlikely.
You declined and we’d say that’s just as well, because even if you were talking to a legitimate representative, the Yahoo Mail brand is now so tainted that we couldn’t with good conscience recommend anyone willingly pay for it.