Hotmail Has Blocked My Account

[sceadugenga]

Hotmail has blocked my account, saying stuff about.....

Your account has been blocked

Why are you seeing this?

Someone may have used your account to send out a lot of junk messages (or something else that violates the Windows Live Terms of Service).

We're here to help you get your account back.

What do you need to do?

We'll walk you through a few steps to verify that you own the account, then have you change your password in case someone else has been accessing your account. It should only take a few minutes and then you'll be unblocked and on your way.

We've cleaned your account settings

Often customers get here because someone else has access to your account and are using it without your knowledge to send spam. To protect you and your contacts, we've removed any Hotmail auto-replies or linked accounts you may have had.

But... the contact email address they want me to use isn't mine.

Where should we send your verification code?

Here's the contact information we have for you.

Contact Support

And I can't change it.

Contact Support just takes me back to square one.

[katana]

I guess you checked it really is blocked and not some phishing attempt to gain your pw?

[sceadugenga]

How do I do that?

[janverbeem]

Smile,it's one of the best things that happened to you lately because hotmail sucks big time.Time to change to a better option. ( every option available is an improvement by the way)

[katana]

How do I do that?

I meant tried to log in to your Hotmail account recently.

[sceadugenga]

I have better options but use hotmail for some things.

Yes, it just let me change my password then informed me I was still blocked.

[Theo007]

I had a similar problem a few months ago, I followed the instructions and then everything worked again.

[tutsiwarrior]

Smile,it's one of the best things that happened to you lately because hotmail sucks big time.Time to change to a better option. ( every option available is an improvement by the way)

I was recently in the UK and had the same problem with gmail...as I was logging in from a different location (other than SE Asia) a security routine was set off and I couldn't log in without answering some weird questions the answers to which I did not have...couldn't log into gmail the whole time I was away...

but I could access hotmail OK ...

[sceadugenga]

I have a Gmail account that I use for most things.

I started it because of the file mailing system that ran rings around Hotmail at the time but Hotmail has improved theirs to match it and is often faster, Gmail can be very slow with bad connections.

My main problem, described in the OP is that somehow they have the wrong backup email address for me which means they can't email me the new code they say I need.

[MKAsok]

Whoever hacked your account has probably changed your reset email and security questions. You may be SOL unfortunately. You should probably also be asking yourself how this happened. Check your computer for trojans, key loggers etc. Change all your other passwords quick time.

[Sateev]

Big phishing campaign going around just now - you get a message marked 'Urgent', but when you open it, there's a link saying "Click here to see your message". When you click it, it brings up a Windows Live logon screen (fake, of course), and if, in your confusion, you login, a script takes your password, and sends the same email to everyone in your contact list.

Never log on to ANYTHING that requires you to enter a password from a link in email.

[sceadugenga]

Yes, thank you, but it's not doing that because my other addresses are in the Hotmail address book.

And I don't fall for that type of trick either, the problem is that someone, possibly me, has got the back up email address wrong so they can't send me the new code.

[sceadugenga]

Ok. it's fixed, I used the "I think my account has been hacked" option and it allowed me to set up a new password.

[Pib]

Smile,it's one of the best things that happened to you lately because hotmail sucks big time.Time to change to a better option. ( every option available is an improvement by the way)

I was recently in the UK and had the same problem with gmail...as I was logging in from a different location (other than SE Asia) a security routine was set off and I couldn't log in without answering some weird questions the answers to which I did not have...couldn't log into gmail the whole time I was away...

but I could access hotmail OK ...

One of those weird Gmail questions was probably the Security Question & Answer you had chosen/setup in the past on your gmail account...maybe as far back as when creating the gmail account....you must have forgot doing this in the past and what the answer was. The other question was probably Gmail asking you where do you normally logon from and the implied answer was probably whatever country you were trying to logon from....like the UK.

Happened to me the other day here in Bangkok when logging onto Gmail with my VPN turned on which gives me a U.S. IP address (San Francisco area). I logged off gmail, turned off my VPN, and then began logging back onto gmail, but during the logon process gmail popped up with a Security Question & Answer since as far as gmail was concerned I just finished logging on from San Francisco and now I was trying to log back on from Thailand...basically, how could I physically get from the U.S. to Thailand so fast....someone may be hacking into the account....either from the U.S. or Thailand. So, instead of answering the first question that, Yes I normally logon from San Francisco, I answered the second question which was my Security Question & Answer I had setup before....probably when first setting up my gmail account years ago and I never updated the security question/answer....but no problem the Question & Answer related to the name of my first dog and I was able to complete logging onto Gmail. I didn't want to answer the first question that Yes, I normally log on from San Francisco, because I don't use my VPN that much giving me the SF area IP address and didn't want to be bothered with a Security Quetion & Answer periodically when gmail saw me logging on from Thailand 99% of the time but I had earlier told it I logon from SF most of the time.

You may be thinking how do I update my Security Question & Answer? Here's the Gmail link on how to do that. Link Be sure to use a question & answer which would be pretty hard-to-impossible to forget even if asked the question many years later. Cheers.