My girlfriend’s grandmother had her email hacked at Hotmail. Locked out and scared she contacted my girlfriend who has tried to go above and beyond to recover and restore her grandmother’s email account. Here is the exchange between my girlfriend and a Microsoft Hotmail agent Alvie:
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Connected with Alvie. Your reference number for this chat session is 2380944.
Alvie: Welcome to Microsoft Customer Service chat. How may I help you?
Alvie: This chat service is designed to assist you with site navigation, technical support case submission, and customer service questions. If you need technical support, I can provide you with your support options or help you submit your case to the appropriate support professional who can work with you to resolve your issue.
Kelsey: Hi! I have a question regarding my grandmother’s hotmail account…
Kelsey: She doesn’t understand quite what’s going on, so I am attempting to help fix it for her.
Kelsey: Someone hacked into her email account, and is now spamming people from her contact list.
Kelsey: She cannot regain access to her account.
Kelsey: I have tried several times to change the password for her, but I get an error message every time.
Kelsey: I have even waited the 24 hours before trying again.
Kelsey: All of my information I am using is directly from her, and is accurate.
Kelsey: How can I recover her email account for her?
Alvie: Thank you Kelsey for all this information provided.
Alvie: For Hotmail issues, you may go to our support website that may help this issue resolve on your own. The website that you can go to is support.live.com.
Kelsey: I have tried that site. It has not helped. I need a Customer Service Representative to help resolve this please
Kelsey: That site offers three ways to help recover a compromised account. I have tried all three. None of them have worked.
Alvie: Unfortunately, we do not have phone support for hotmail accounts because it involves very confidential information and Microsoft is prohibited by Federal Law for this type of issues.
Kelsey: So I discovered. They make it impossible to find a person to help!
Kelsey: So if I cannot talk to a real live person, how am I supposed to resolve this??
Alvie: On that site, you can submit an incident online and someone from hotmail team will respond to you within 24 hours.
Kelsey: I tried that. It would not let me complete the report.
Alvie: For those spam mails sent to the contacts of your grandmother. Please tell the recipients of the mail to create a reply email and please cc this email address: abuse@microsoft.com.
Alvie: I am really sorry Kelsey, we don’t have phone support for Hotmail issues.
Kelsey: Why would that help? If I reply, won’t the spammer know that they have found a live email address?
Alvie: The email address of that spammer will be already blocked from sending emails to those contact lists.
Kelsey: By whom?
Kelsey: And what if I can get my grandmother’s email account back? Will that mean that she will also be blocked from emailing people on her contact list?
Alvie: By hotmail support. It is automatically generated in the system that the email address of that spammer will already be blocked.
Alvie: No. Only the email address or the source of that spam email will be blocked.
Alvie: You can post your question on that site. There is also a forum site at support.live.com
Kelsey: You know, salvaging her email address really isn’t all that important. If I can salvage her contact list though, I could import it into another email provider, like gmail. Do you know if there is a way to do that? To just save her contact list and export it?
Alvie: I am sorry Kelsey, I am not technically trained. I am afraid I could not be able to provide an answer to that question.
Kelsey: Ok. You have clearly tried to help, thank you.
Alvie: You are most welcome. Is there anything else?
Kelsey: Do you know what Federal law it is that prohibits Hotmail from providing phone support?
Alvie: It is a US Federal Law.
Kelsey: Can you please specify which law that is?
Alvie: I am sorry I do not have that specific information.
Kelsey: Who provided you with the information that there was a law at all?
Alvie: There is a law on invasion of privacy, Kelsey and that is in Federal law. Microsoft is not allowed to invade that privacy of our customers.
Kelsey: By providing phone support?
Alvie: Yes Kelsey.
Kelsey: Can you please give me the citation for this US Federal Code?
Alvie: I am sorry I do not have that information here right now.
Alvie: I am sorry we don’t have phone support for hotmail issues.
Kelsey: It seems like there may not actually be a law, right Alvie?
Kelsey: Can you please provide me with a Microsoft Customer Service phone number.
Kelsey: That is the last thing I need today.
Alvie: I cannot agree on you for that matter. I am just following policy here at Microsoft.
Alvie: Sure, the phone number you can call is 1-800-936-5700 option 0. Business hours is from 6 am – 3 pm, PST, Saturday and Sunday.
Kelsey: Ok. That is all.
Alvie: Ok. Thank you for using Microsoft Customer Service chat. Have a great day.
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