Lesson to be learned

I turned on my computer today and went to my yahoo account. I typed in the log in and password-INVALID. Hmmm…I retyped it a bit slower this time-INVALID. I tried again, slowly and with care- INVALID. I make my way to the help section and try again. I'm informed that my account has been deactivated. Huh? Deactivated? I never requested that my account be deactivated. Ok, now I need to talk to somebody.
I call customer support and speak with Melanie, who in a quite pleasant and professional manner informs me that my account has been closed due to a violation of the terms of the agreement in regards to Yahoogroups (Yahoogroups is a forum type service where folks join to discuss anything from quilts to Politics in China. I belong to several groups that discuss Action figures, role-playing games, comic books etc.). Well, I inform her that whatever the violation was it was purely unintentional and if they could just reinstate my account I’ll see to it, I have after all, a premium account which I pay for. Her reply was a pleasant but firm: No.
It seems that Yahoo’s policy is that once a violation occurs on ANY Yahoo service then the ENTIRE account is wiped out. There is no warning or recourse, all of this, she related to me, is clearly stated in the terms of service that you sign at the very inception of the account. Suddenly the realization of what she was saying hit me. Not only did I lose access to the groups I belong to, but my email addresses as well, and all the saved emails that I had filed away in my email folders, and more importantly all of the folders and addresses that my wife had stored there too (to lose my stuff because I was careless is a hit I’ll take, but to lose hers as well is damned embarrassing).
Well I was able to recover about 90% of the groups I was in or had run. But I still seem to have lost all the emails I saved on yahoo. Still working on recovery efforts but it will be awhile before its all back to normal. The coming weeks will probably show the extent of what I’ve lost information-wise. Oh joy.