Help with Hotmail account (locked out)

Always_the_realist

Hi. My daughter was locked out of her Hotmail account this week when she tried to access her emails on holiday. (message - someone maybe using your account - need to use a familiar desktop/laptop to provide security information). She's made numerous attempts over the past two days to provide all the information they have asked for via the online forms etc (emails recently sent, previous passwords, skype contacts) but every time she received an email to say that she has either not provided enough or incorrect information. Tbh - she's at her wit's end at the moment. She's recently applied for countless jobs and awaiting responses but unfortunately didn't keep a separate list of the companies. She uses that email address for all her uni work/employment/banks/car insurance etc. I know these can be changed/updated but she's more concerned about the job applications. We've being going round in circles trying to contact Microsoft to no avail. Can anyone help with any ideas about how she could unlock/access her emails? Thanks in advance

Nasqueron

Can you go on the PC she normally uses and try the process from there? Did she setup a recovery email address to get login details sent to?

Always_the_realist

She has. It's her lap top but no joy. The recovery email was a talk talk one of mine which I no longer use and can no longer send or receive emails from. Her account has been open for a number of years and the only thing she has updated are passwords. It wasn't as if she used an incorrect password, just wanted to see on holiday if she'd any responses to her job applications.

PRAISETHESUN

The issue will be that the hotmail servers recognised that the login was from a different geographic location than usual - that type of sudden change in login patterns is usually a flag that something might not be right and the account has been locked as a precaution.

As for getting it unlocked, there should be several recovery options including alternate email addresses or even recovery codes. Otherwise there should be an option to select "none of the above" when trying to reset the password and you can put in a request to reset the back up options - however this usually takes a month or two as they give a very long window in case you are trying to gain fraudulent access to an account. Sending Microsoft an email from the same PC and network location that the account is usually accessed from might help, but I can't say for sure.

techquest

Have you gone through the ACSR (account recovery) procedure whereby you fill in the online form and they ask you about details that only your daughter knows on the account, like emails sent, last used and the likes of. You provide them with an email contact address so they can get back to you. They then respond within 24hrs. It's the only way you might be able to get something done in a short timeframe, otherwise its the 30 day period MS subject you too.

Here's the link to start:

https://account.live.com/acsr

Always_the_realist

thanks. done all that but won't accept the info. I didn't know about the 30 day period route. We'll give that a go. Many thank

Always_the_realist

How do you start the process of resetting the back up options that takes a month or so?

techquest

Always_the_realist wrote: »

How do you start the process of resetting the back up options that takes a month or so?

Don't know if you tried by the methods mentioned in the link below, if not its worth giving them a go.
https://www.wikihow.com/Reset-a-Lost-Hotmail-Password

This link for when you can't sign in. There are other links on this page.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12429/microsoft-account-sign-in-cant

The problem with your question is where to start MS have so many links for this issue. . Try this one if your getting nowhere

https://account.live.com/resetpassword.aspx

If you don't get anywhere let us know and we can see if we can help further, so hang on in there.