YouMail Inc

We are happy to issue a day refund of all charges paid to YouMail by this user

YouMail makes it clear to users that is an "over the top service" that requires certain functionality of their wireless carrier and their wireless carrier plans to work.Specifically, it requires that the user's carrier provides conditional call forwarding, and that their carrier and plan
allows calls to be conditionally forwarded to non-local numbers.*** *** (the carrier of this particular person) is notorious for (a) having plans that don't allow conditional call forwarding, and (b) not allowing people to forward to non-local numbers. YouMail does not provide free users local numbers to forward their missed calls to, which is the likely cause of the error message "The # you dialed is not a working number".YouMail can not determine in advance what restrictions might be on a given user, so we have to let users try to forward their phone, and if it fails, we provide them mechanisms to stop any problematic forwarding. In this case, the user need only dial ##004# to go back to *** *** voicemail

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.CURRENTLY: My test calls are STILL failing, & my YouMail voicemail is STILL not working by relaying an automated message telling callers: "The # you dialed is not a working #."(SEE: "IMAGE #6.= Test Call Failure Message [HIGHLIGHTED RED CIRCLE SECTION saying ''We were unable to connect the callTry again''])"
Regards,
*** *** *** / *** (CELLULAR # / Eastern Time)

We're sorry that this customer is confused by YouMail.YouMail works by the user downloading the app, and then arranging to forward their missed calls to YouMail. On iPhones, this is done by dialing the YouMail Activate contact the app adds to their phone book. At that time,
we ask them to dial YouMail Deactivate at any time they wish to go back to their original wireless carrier voicemail (which dials the carrier-specific codes to turn off missed call forwarding). All this user need do is (a) go to their contact list on the iPhone, (b) dial the numbers under YouMail Deactivate. If they google "cancel YouMail" or anything remotely like that, there are customer support pages that explain this in more detail

This is a misunderstanding of how YouMail works as outlined in our terms of service.When someone activates YouMail, it replaces their cell phone voicemail.  This is done by having unanswered calls forwarded to a different number (provided by YouMail) instead of the wireless carrier's voicemail...

access number.  That new phone number may show up on a carrier phone bill as a forwarded call - and the number can be viewed by signing into YouMail and looking at the MyPhones setting (which shows which number is being used for missed calls).  That's perfectly normal behavior - and works that way for millions of users without issue.However...What has happened here appears to be that the access number YouMail assigned this user apparently was apparently spoofed by someone else.   That is, some scammer happened to make calls pretending to be from this user's access number - something that's easy to do, and every day people not on YouMail find their phone number's spoofed and used to make calls to others.   As a result, people are calling that access number back to gripe, which is then causing these messages to show up in her box.The fix is extremely simple: just get a new access number, which YouMail can provide easily.  Alternatively, the user can delete their account (the security setting at youmail.com for their account) and they will be told how to easily return to their carrier's voicemail, which then disconnects the access number from their account completely.As to the other comments, YouMail does not sell user phone numbers to telemarketters (as per our privacy policy) and instead has a stellar reputation as a service that generally dramatically reduces spam calls to our users.   Further, The chat session referred to was disconnected on the user's end, not our end, and we are happy to chat or have the user call us at 800-374-0013 during normal business hours to help her out.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Major failure and loss of business (on my end) due to lack of ANY customer communication or follow through. Not happy at all!
Regards,
[redacted]

The user claims that YouMail is not successfully recording messages left and/or not notifying him of new messages that come in.We have verified that when a call is forwarded to YouMail and we answer the phone, we are sending him an e-mail to the e-mail address he provided for each missed call...

we get, and we are sending him a push notification to his [redacted].   If he is not being notified of messages, the e-mails are likely going to a spam folder or he has turned off permission for YouMail to push those notifications.   (The other possibility is that since he is on [redacted], he has not dialed all forwarding codes correctly, in which case some messages could still be being taken by [redacted] (which would explain why he is not getting the message, if he set up call forward no answer but did not set up call forward busy).We are not responsible for business gained or lost through the use of YouMail as a service, which is clearly spelled out in our terms of service.  That said, we are happy to investigate further if the user can contact our customer service.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
Regards,
[redacted]

We did contact this user with multiple e-mails and voicemails after his complaint.  We're sorry that our responses weren't satisfactory.

The complaining consumer refers to a Washington Statute as the basis for his removal request.  However, YouMail is not a "Radio communications service company" as defined by that statute.  Specifically, RCW [redacted] defines "Radio communications service company" as"severy
corporation,...

company, association, joint stock association, partnership,
and person, their lessees, trustees, or receivers appointed by any
court, and every city or town making available facilities to provide
radio communications service, radio paging, or cellular communications
service for hire, sale, or resale".  Thus, the law the consumer cites does not apply to YouMail.There is no specific legal requirement to remove the existence of a phone number from a directory that simply lists phone numbers.That said, the consumer has been told that he can simply prove he owns the number at who.youmail.com, and then change the information associated to that number to "Unlisted" or "Private" or whatever he or she would like, which should be sufficient.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
The motherboard on my computer failed.  I am just now up and running again. I missed the email response. All is set up correctly, I assume, because YouMail customer service walked me through the set up. I will contact customer service again. Maybe they made a mistake. However, I think YouMail should stand behind their product and at least refund money paid for services not received.
Regards,
[redacted]

The customer had actually signed up for two products: YouMail Premium ($50/year) and a YouMail High-Volume Read-It Plan ($199/year) - which provided human-edited transcription.We have talked to the customer and refunded the most recent $199/charge, given she was not aware she had it nor did...

she need it.On the other two issues, we are working to answer more calls in real-time and have been increasing our staffing to more quickly respond to customer questions, especially those around billing.  On the caller ID, if she can provide the number in question, we will look to see what's going on.   Our premium caller ID uses external third-party databases we pay to do look ups on, and we rely to some degree on the quality of those databases.  We will investigate if there are numbers that have the wrong ID for some reason and we update those when we find them.  With 300m+ numbers, there are always a few that are off.

We are working to get a hold of Mr. [redacted] to help him fix his issue.   We had an outage one day with Zendesk, the tool we use to manage our customer support processes, and it has taken a few days to catch up.  We apologize for any delay and will make sure that everything is perfect...

as soon as we can get ahold of him.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
YouMail's statement is false.  They are attempting to mislead the Revdex.com by stating that they are not a radio communications service company, which is true, however this law applies to "Director providers".  YouMail is a director provider under RCW 19.250.005:"Directory provider" means any person in the business of marketing, selling, or sharing the phone number of any subscriber in directory form for commercial purposes."This law applies directly to YouMail and they still refuse to remove my personal unlisted, unpublished cell phone number.Furthermore, their privacy policy is in violation of the Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 - California Business and Professions Code sections 22575-22579 and I would like to ask the Revdex.com to work with the Orange County District Attorney Economic Crimes Unit, Consumer and Environmental Protection Unit to bring them into compliance with state laws that prevent these director providers from listing personal mobile phone numbers.Regards,
[redacted]

The user's complaint is about a transactional (not marketing) e-mail letting the user know that his YouMail is not set up correctly and that he will be having issues within his YouMail app.  Specifically, an automatically generated e-mail that lets him know that YouMail does not have the...

required permission to do push notifications to his phone when new messages or missed calls occur.That said, there appears to be a system bug that the user is getting sent this message daily instead of on a less frequent basis.  We have turned off this notification for the user and are working to fix the bug overall.

Review: I installed "YouMail" on my iPhone 6 (ATT) thinking it was program I could use if I choose to. I had no idea once I downloaded it from the App Store on my phone, it would auto activate and prevent my calls from coming to me. I've spent two days trying to uninstall it from phone and have callers leave messages to my previously set up voice mail. I have a neuromuscular disease that also effects vision. Friends have tried to help me pour through every instruction online re: deactivating and returning messages to the actual phone's voice mail, to no avail. We've following "MyMail's" cryptic instructions on entering combinations of coded characters and numbers but it won't work and my calls are diverted to their site (which somehow was able to obtain all my private contact info, including financial info, medical info, and passwords). Since my vision is impaired and I have physical limitations; I need a human being to walk me through the process of removing the account and RETURNING MY VOICEMAILS back to my own phone. From what I've seen online, no one has yet been successful at doing so. The last thing I want is for the company to send me to instruction sites that I know I've already been on and tried their suggestions. There is nothing online that allows one to remove the "MYMAIL" app AND REROUTE all the contacts they accessed back to my phone. Today alone, I missed about 10 voicemails, some of a medical nature, family nature and some regarding previously plans made by friends. Please help by getting a real person to call me.

Business

Response:

We're sorry that this customer is confused by YouMail.YouMail works by the user downloading the app, and then arranging to forward their missed calls to YouMail. On iPhones, this is done by dialing the YouMail Activate contact the app adds to their phone book. At that time, we ask them to dial YouMail Deactivate at any time they wish to go back to their original wireless carrier voicemail (which dials the carrier-specific codes to turn off missed call forwarding). All this user need do is (a) go to their contact list on the iPhone, (b) dial the numbers under YouMail Deactivate. If they google "cancel YouMail" or anything remotely like that, there are customer support pages that explain this in more detail.

Review: This company has been a problem every time I have had to contact them.First, started using the service 2-3 years ago, started with the free app. After about 5-8 voicemails that were left in my account with them, it started having errors with anybody trying to leave a voicemail. Youmail had 2 versions at the time, a free app, and "IF"... and I stress if, you were with one of the "unlucky" carriers that you needed a dedicated service number to relay from, you would have to go pro, for the then price of I believe $9.99 as a one time fee. I apparently needed it according to whomever I spoke to when I received a call back at 3am about 4 days later. YouMail decided to change plans altogether & up their prices, no email nothing. I call again to notice that there isn't anyone that you speak to when you call, it just is set up to appear that you will talk to someone, but its basically a big digital beeper for the company. They call you back whenever its ok for them, with no warning of what the number is. I was told and confirmed that the plans/pricepoints were changing but was confirmed that because I would be a "new adoptee" & would be locked in at $15/yr for the lifetime of my use (half of the new plan rate of $30/yr). The rest of the (2013?) year would be free (I believe I paid around 8/2012 for pro app, & the free year would have been 2013 then after the change in services) as a "perk" for upgrading early.These terms were not honored or even mentioned.I had my youmail service randomly shut off April 23 2014, & several emails telling me that I had to update my credit card info, no warning, nothing. Just out of the blue "pay now" email. I updated info, but notice its now $30 a year. I go thru customer service again, stating not happy about price change randomly, spoke to "[redacted]" to which he just turns my service off. No honoring anything they said, & now I cant even access any of the 200+ msgs I have stranded, along with youmail having a message of "Number no longer in service." for my vmailDesired Settlement: I am requesting that they honor the terms that they originally sold me on to upgrade to the newer service @ 15/yr. It was not a temp discount, I was told for THE LIFETIME OF MY USE. To tell me that what I use now is $60/yr from 15, from 10, from FREE is deceiving, to shut off the service WHEN NEVER ASKED is just cruel & now to not even be able to use the service, to get the voicemails and to be straight out LIED TO by company reps is just disgusting. I didnt want a refund. Honor the TERMS.

Business

Response:

YouMail honors its terms completely and absolutely. Our terms when people sign up for a paid service using a promotional discount is that the discount is for one year, and then users will be billed at the then prevailing store rates. This is stated both on the purchase page (when someone enters a promo code) and on the statement/orders page where people can see what they're billed for and when. This is identical to promotions used by cable companies and others. In this case, the $15 price point originally offered to the customer was good for one year, and at the end of that year, the price in the store of that service became $29.99, which is what they were billed.

The terms actually allow us to change prices at any time and without notice, but we have rules like those above we follow when it comes to discounts.

If they wish, we will refund them the $30 they were billed and cancel their service. They merely need to let us know.

As a note, we no longer offer the YouMail Pro service to new customers, and the replacement service is $49.99/year, so the $30 is still a substantial discount to what's available to new customers.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The company statement completely avoided every topic that was at hand. They don't have to offer to cancel the service, I never signed a contract locking me in to their terms and conditions. I was dropped immediately without being asked by "[redacted]" during the phonecall that I had. I specifically asked to NOT touch my service, and he did anyway.

Your response neglected to answer about that.

Review: YouMail refuses to remove my personal wireless phone number from their online directory pursuant to RCW 19.250.030:

"A subscriber may request that a directory provider or a radio communications service company remove their wireless phone number from a directory of any form at any time. A radio communications service company or a directory provider shall, at no cost to the subscriber, comply with the subscriber's request to remove their wireless phone number from a directory of any form within a reasonable period of time, not to exceed sixty days for printed directories and not to exceed thirty days for online or other directories." - Excerpt from RCW 19.250.030.

I would like them to remove my cell phone number, which is the law. I have attempted to politely explain to them and jump through their hoops, but they are still refuse to remove my phone number. The ticket I have opened with them in their support system is #[redacted]?.

Would appreciate your help in making them follow the law.

Thanks!

[redacted]Desired Settlement: Apology and full compliance with the law, including the removal of my number from their system and any affiliates. I would like acknowledgement that they understand and will create a method for others to delist their wireless phone number.

Business

Response:

The complaining consumer refers to a Washington Statute as the basis for his removal request. However, YouMail is not a "Radio communications service company" as defined by that statute. Specifically, RCW [redacted] defines "Radio communications service company" as"severy

corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership,

and person, their lessees, trustees, or receivers appointed by any

court, and every city or town making available facilities to provide

radio communications service, radio paging, or cellular communications

service for hire, sale, or resale". Thus, the law the consumer cites does not apply to YouMail.There is no specific legal requirement to remove the existence of a phone number from a directory that simply lists phone numbers.That said, the consumer has been told that he can simply prove he owns the number at who.youmail.com, and then change the information associated to that number to "Unlisted" or "Private" or whatever he or she would like, which should be sufficient.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Review: I have opted out for over a year. I have called the company Youmail multiple times and I have emailed them many times asking them to stop emailing me their marketing emails. I have unsubscribed from the link in the email but they still continue to email me almost daily with their marketing emails.Desired Settlement: I have opted out for over a year. I have called the company Youmail multiple times and I have emailed them many times asking them to stop emailing me their marketing emails. I have unsubscribed from the link in the email but they still continue to email me almost daily with their marketing emails. I want them to remove from all marketing emails.

Business

Response:

The user's complaint is about a transactional (not marketing) e-mail letting the user know that his YouMail is not set up correctly and that he will be having issues within his YouMail app. Specifically, an automatically generated e-mail that lets him know that YouMail does not have the required permission to do push notifications to his phone when new messages or missed calls occur.That said, there appears to be a system bug that the user is getting sent this message daily instead of on a less frequent basis. We have turned off this notification for the user and are working to fix the bug overall.

Review: I purchased a subscription to YouMail's service, based on advertisements that promised to "Stop BLOCKED and UNKNOWN Callers with YouMail!." I was having a problem with recieving MANY calls from unknown/blocked numbers today, and it was difficult for me to reject all of these calls (the first instinct is to pick up). I found YouMail in the Apple App Store after my provider, Verizon, was unable to help. From the description of YouMail, it appeared that the company's service would solve my problem. In fact, YouMail's service did NOTHING to "stop" blocked and unknown callers. It continued to allow those calls to ring through to my phone. The only service provided by YouMail was to force unknown and blocked callers to provide a number before leaving me a voicemail. Of course, no caller from a blocked or unknown number wants to leave me a voicemail. They are CALLING FROM A BLOCKED NUMBER, hence they don't want me to know who they are and would never leave a message. The very idea is ridiculous.

When I emailed my complaint to the company and cancelled my subscription, the company representative acted very innocent, as though they had no idea a consumer could be mistaken about the true service YouMail provides. At the time, I felt a bit ashamed of myself thinking that I had been a dolt and failed to read the fine print. But then I CONTINUED to receive advertising from YouMail that claims to "stop" blocked and unknown callers. The actual YouMail service (which is no service at all, since, as I mentioned above, few blocked callers would ever leave a message anyway) is disclosed in very small letters far from the primary claim to stop blocked and unknown callers. Moreover, any disclaimer -- even if it were actually clear and conspicuous -- would be inadequate to correct the literally false message that is the main point of YouMail's advertising.

I am disgusted by this business, as its main strategy seems to be to mislead consumers.Desired Settlement: This company needs to change its advertising right away, and issue a full refund to me and to any other consumer that purchased its service with the belief that it would actually STOP unknown and blocked numbers from ringing through.

Business

Response:

We are arranging a full refund for the complainant, since we provide refunds to anyone who is not satisfied with our premium services.

We believe our advertising is clear, given the lack of complaints/confusion from our users in general.

However, we will make sure all our advertising in the future makes it clear that blocked/unknown calls disappear over time, rather than instantly, and requires that the users also use the "ditch blocked callers" feature, which fools blocked callers into thinking the number is no longer service and results in the user's number being taken off the call list, and therefore stops those calls.