Inside the mind and heart of Venkatesh Sridhar

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A HACKER, DONT POST A COMMENT ASKING ME TO DO THE RECOVERY PROCESS FOR YOU, IT IS A TUTORIAL FOR THE BENEFIT OF BONAFIDE YAHOO! USERS ONLY. I CANNOT AND WILL CERTAINLY NOT HELP IN RECOVERING THE PASSWORD OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND/WIFE/HUSBAND.

This is going to be one hell of a post for all of you out there because it is going to be very useful for you guys as I did this just now and I recovered my Yahoo! password successfully, so here is how to do it:

1) First, remember, always try the Forgot Password option on your Yahoo! account. You need to enter in your Birthday, a Zip or Postal Code and Country - the exact same thing that you have provided in your account information, if you have not entered any of those information then it is time you do it, you will need them as without them you cannot recover your password legitimately. Now scroll down and enter your id in the box provided for the same on the bottom left. If you entered the correct information, you would see a screen that will show your secret question and ask you to enter your answer to the secret question. If you enter it correctly you will be given an option to enter in a new password. You have three chances to enter them after which your account becomes inactive.

2) If you have forgotten the answer to the secret question, then the method I am going to suggest is going to very helpful - but there is a rider. The following steps will help you recover your Yahoo! password if you have used your credit card to purchase a Yahoo! service like Yahoo! Voice, Yahoo! Domains, Yahoo! GeoCities, etc. So, without further adue, here are the steps to be followed to successfully recover your Yahoo! password.

i. Call Yahoo! Customer Care at +1-408-349-1572 (Yes, it is an ISD call but its worth it!!)

ii. Press 2 to select Other Services

iii. Press 2 to select Password

iv. Your call will be transferred to the Yahoo! associate tell him your problem. He needs the information for his transcript and history purposes.

v. He will ask you for your birthday and your zip code. I wasn’t asked the country I was calling from.

vi. He will then ask you the Secret question and give you three chances to take. Before answering make it clear you are guessing. He will insist for you to take those three chances as it is part of the workflow, so do it.

vii. He will then ask you if you would want to verify the identity through alternate means - the answer is very logical since the sole purpose of making your call is to verify through an alternate source. He needs your assent on the phone as the phone call may be recorded.

viii. He will ask you the last 8 digits of your credit card - this is what I was asked, so I guess it could be a standard question. I told him the 8 digits of the other credit card he told me I have a total of three chances in this too and then I remembered I had used a different credit card, gave him the correct last 8 digits.

ix. He will thank you for verification and will then ask you to give an alternate email address, remember this should be an email for which you have proper access. Provide him with one. he will repeat it to you by spelling it out, if he is going too fast ask him to slow down and repeat.

x. He will then inform you that he will be sending a temporary password to your alternate e-mail account and you should click on the link provided in the email and change the password.

xi. He will provide you with a reference number - always note this down.

xii. After you hang up - (I hope that you are polite to him), check your alternate email. You should find the mail from Yahoo! in your inbox in about 2 minutes. If you do not get it within 24 hours you can call them up, quote your reference number and the matter will be escalated and hopefully resolved soon. Usually, it should be a case of clogged mailboxes or some technical issue.

xiii. When you open the mail, click the link provided, enter your Yahoo! id, copy the password sent to you and paste it in the password box. If you had entered a wrong password more than 5 times your account will be disabled. If this had happened with you, then it will ask you to re-enter the information alongwith an image verification thing.

xiv. Once you do so, a page will open thanking you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care and will ask you to enter your current password which is the password you got in mail and it will ask you to provide with a new one.

xv. Once you enter this, your Yahoo! mail account will be displayed much to your relief and joy.

I got this done today and I thought I will share this with you guys, I actually googled the exact same thing and that is how I landed with the customer care number from a comment on the blog and I decided to give it a shot and I realised that since it is not an advertised number, it is rare and also not many people know about it, that is why the title is a common phrase that people might use to search on google and hopefully this post may come out on top.

If not, then there is a way in which I can remember how I did it.