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My Outlook.com account has been taken over by someone else.

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  • 15-07-2017 5:15pm
    #1
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭


    So I was able to get my name as part of my hotmail address in the late 90's.


    Some time ago this was changed over to myname@outlook.com and everything that was sent to myname@hotmail.com went to both.
    I had the account setup in my iPhone .
    I used to only check the account every couple of months but recently a few people said they sent me stuff that never arrived.

    I did a bit of testing and it seems that nyname@ooulook.com has been taken over by someone else while the hotmail portion still belongs to me.

    Both had previously been merged and all was working fine.

    I tried to sign in on my laptop to my outlook account and when I go to "I forgot my password" the recovery email isn't mine and similarly the phone number isn't mine.

    I've been in contact with Microsoft via their online help form and they said I can't provide details of messages that would have been sent from the outlook.com account so they can't help me.

    I'm kinda stuck as I have some important mails from many people sent last week that went to the outlook account .

    Does this make sense ?

    Anybody got any suggestions on what I should do ?


    Thanks in advance


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    #2
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Fantomas9mm


    So, got some progress from Microsoft

    They said that the account was "inactive" and thus made available again for someone to register.

    I fail to see how if the accounts were merged and was setup on my phone and regularly receiving mails how it could be considered inactive.

    Not sure what my recourse is here.

    Anybody have any experience of the same ?


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    #3
    Johnboy1951
    Registered Users Posts: 13,999 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    Fantomas9mm wrote: »
    So, got some progress from Microsoft

    They said that the account was "inactive" and thus made available again for someone to register.

    I fail to see how if the accounts were merged and was setup on my phone and regularly receiving mails how it could be considered inactive.

    Not sure what my recourse is here.

    Anybody have any experience of the same ?

    Inactive to MS probably means you had not logged in to it.

    I would get very very shirty with MS ......... they have given away your email account to someone else without even notifying you.

    There is a lot at stake here.
    Privacy
    Security of communications
    Loss of data

    and all of it down to what they did.

    Of course ..... if they did notify you and you ignored or forgot about the terms of having the account you might not be on solid ground.


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    #4
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Fantomas9mm


    Johnboy1951 wrote: »
    Inactive to MS probably means you had not logged in to it.

    I would get very very shirty with MS ......... they have given away your email account to someone else without even notifying you.

    There is a lot at stake here.
    Privacy
    Security of communications
    Loss of data

    and all of it down to what they did.

    Of course ..... if they did notify you and you ignored or forgot about the terms of having the account you might not be on solid ground.

    Ok, so I got in contact with one of their chat support dudes.

    He said that my hotmail account was moved over to the outlook service but that the actual email address stayed the same and never changed to @outlook.com

    He said that the @outlook address was free for someone else to register it which is what happened.

    I had been signing into outlook.com with my hotmail address and I had assumed that @hotmail.com address was now automatically moved over to @outlook.com.

    It's all very confusing .


    Kinda got conflicting info from two different Microsoft sources .


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    #5
    Johnboy1951
    Registered Users Posts: 13,999 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    Fantomas9mm wrote: »
    Ok, so I got in contact with one of their chat support dudes.

    He said that my hotmail account was moved over to the outlook service but that the actual email address stayed the same and never changed to @outlook.com

    He said that the @outlook address was free for someone else to register it which is what happened.

    I had been signing into outlook.com with my hotmail address and I had assumed that @hotmail.com address was now automatically moved over to @outlook.com.

    It's all very confusing .


    Kinda got conflicting info from two different Microsoft sources .

    Hardly surprising :D


  • Options
    #6
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    MS really made a mess of the whole live, outlook and hotmail migration.


    MS are past masters of taking something simple and making is so complicated that even they don't understand it. Then have to re-invent it, in the hope of simplification but almost always make it more complicated.


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    #7
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Fantomas9mm


    beauf wrote: »
    MS really made a mess of the whole live, outlook and hotmail migration.


    MS are past masters of taking something simple and making is so complicated that even they don't understand it. Then have to re-invent it, in the hope of simplification but almost always make it more complicated.

    Agreed , I'm more angry with myself for getting so involved with them. Gmail all the way.


    Am I mad in thinking that all hotmail addresses automatically became outlook addresses ?

    One Microsoft person says yes, the other says no


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    #8
    Cherry Blossom
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Regional North West Moderators Posts: 6,941 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cherry Blossom


    I have my @hotmail account since the 90s. I never at any point had an @outlook or @live account.


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    #9
    4068ac1elhodqr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,586 ✭✭✭4068ac1elhodqr


    MS sure know how to give folks a free headache.

    Had an old hotmail/outlook account.
    Recently someone at their 'user experience team' had the 'brainfart' of an idea of messing up the emails into what they call 'focused'.

    Focus on this MS: Just put the emails in there as they arrive.

    Don't be juggling them all around over the shop, sorting them by tone, colour, ambiance or some sort of 'mysterious factor' whereby they can't actually be found.

    It's is possible to 'normalise' the sort order, but you have to click a few settings and do a bit of a tap dance.


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    #10
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Fantomas9mm


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    I have my @hotmail account since the 90s. I never at any point had an @outlook or @live account.

    Grand, I had assumed that when I signed into outlook.com that I had an outlook account .

    But I must have been mistaken .


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    #11
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    I have my @hotmail account since the 90s. I never at any point had an @outlook or @live account.

    My developer account got switched to live at some point.

    I can't remember since I never used it for anything other than MS registrations.


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    #12
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Kinley Shaggy Voltage wrote: »
    MS sure know how to give folks a free headache.

    Had an old hotmail/outlook account.
    Recently someone at their 'user experience team' had the 'brainfart' of an idea of messing up the emails into what they call 'focused'.

    Focus on this MS: Just put the emails in there as they arrive.

    Don't be juggling them all around over the shop, sorting them by tone, colour, ambiance or some sort of 'mysterious factor' whereby they can't actually be found.

    It's is possible to 'normalise' the sort order, but you have to click a few settings and do a bit of a tap dance.

    Gmail does the same messing around.

    I would never rely on either for work email. You never know if they'll filter them at a whim.


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    #13
    Gone Drinking
    Registered Users Posts: 2,809 ✭✭✭Gone Drinking


    If you open your outlook account and go into aliases do you find yourAddress@outlook.com listed there?

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-or-remove-an-email-alias-in-Outlook-com-459b1989-356d-40fa-a689-8f285b13f1f2?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

    Do you have any emails from way back when that were sent yourAddress@outlook.com and are still in your outlook.com inbox?


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    #14
    Fantomas9mm
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Fantomas9mm


    Gone Drinking wrote: »
    If you open your outlook account and go into aliases do you find yourAddress@outlook.com listed there?

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-or-remove-an-email-alias-in-Outlook-com-459b1989-356d-40fa-a689-8f285b13f1f2?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

    Do you have any emails from way back when that were sent yourAddress@outlook.com and are still in your outlook.com inbox?

    Nope to both.

    So it looks like I just assumed I had it, when I didn't .

    So I'm an idiot basically .


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    #15
    Wheety
    Registered Users Posts: 5,510 ✭✭✭Wheety


    I have firstname_surname@hotmail.com since the 90s. A few years ago, I noticed that you can set up an 'alias'. So now I have firstnamesurname@outlook.com, firstnamesurname@outlook.ie, firstnamesurname@live.ie and a few more which don't use my real name. They all reroute into my 1 inbox. It's not the same as having loads of different accounts.

    I recently selected firstnamesurname@outlook.com as my primary one so now I log in with that.

    The change from hotmail.com to outlook.com was just the web address, unless you added the extra addresses.


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