It has now been 8 weeks since my hot mail account ({removed email address}) was erroneously closed, and I still have no response from the Hotmail team.  I followed all the instructions posted here, and I have waited more than patiently in the hopes that the account I have had for over 10 years would be reopened.  I have never violated the terms of use, sent spam, committed fraud or sent out too many messages.  At this time all I would like is a response from hotmail, and access to my inbox.  Obviously I have attained a new E-mail address by this time...

Hi Chad_a_morris,

We don't have the tool that can re-open your account. Only the Abuse Team has it. You can contact them using these e-mail addresses:

   abuse@hotmail.com

Also, they currently have a backlog of issues that they need to wade through, so please wait patiently and they will get to your issue ASAP.

Thanks

@Benji O:


Your response to Chad_a_morris was very insensitive.

I realize that you, and the company you work for (who run these forums), are not actually Microsoft employees. But your company was contracted by Microsoft to address customer's problems with Hotmail .... so, as such, you do represent Microsoft ... and your response to Chad will probably result in Microsoft loosing another Hotmail customer.

As Chad mentioned in his post, he has been patient. He has been waiting for 8 weeks to get his problem resolved. Yet your reply told him that he needs to contact the Abuse Team, but he needs to be patient. He's been waiting for EIGHT WEEKS .... so he has already been patient.

A better response on your part would be to go to your manager, or your manager's manager (or to whatever level of management you have that has direct contact with Microsoft management). You should give Chad's name and email address to your manager and ask that your manager directly contact someone in Microsoft who can escalate Chad's problem.

But instead, you asked a customer, who has already been waiting for EIGHT WEEKS, to be patient because the people on the Abuse Team are backlogged. With that kind of response to your customers, one might conclude that you get a bonus for every Hotmail customer who gives up in frustration and moves to one of Microsoft's competitor's email services!

What ever happened to providing good customer service .... regardless of which department within Microsoft "owns" the problem. I claim that as a representative of Microsoft, YOU own the problem and are responsible for helping your customers .... telling them to be patient and to contact some other Microsoft department is not good support.

Have you considered this:  if enough Hotmail customers give up and abandon Hotmail, that Microsoft will also abandon Hotmail and thus decide not to renew your company's support contract? Your poor customer support could eventually result in you needing to find a job. I'm sure you don't want that to happen. So, how about an apology to Chad, and then a followup with your management to get his problem resolved?

@langware

You may also be aware that in a company, there are different departments that are tasked to do specific things. Like this issue of the accounts that were closed, there's a separate team that handles this kind of issue. We can all just be patient about this matter. If there's only thing that we can do our end to assist users on reopening their accounts, we've already done so. Feedbacks about this issue are well known to the Abuse Team and they're working hard to beat their backlog to assist all of their customers.

@Chad_a_morris

I'm sorry to learn that you're waiting that long to have your account back. It they're still not replying, I recommend that you send a fresh service request to them. Please make sure to provide an alternate working email address where the Abuse Team can send their reply to you.

By the way, I've moved this thread to the Accounts and Passwords forum.

@Jacqui F

Yes, after having worked in management for a large IT company for over 30+ years, I am well aware that there are different departments with specific tasks.

I am also aware that if one goes high enough in the management chain, one can bypass the normal (slow) channels and QUICKLY make something happen.

If the president of your company spoke to his/her counterpart at Microsoft, and specifically asked for help in resolving Chad's problem (because Chad has ALREADY been waiting patiently for EIGHT WEEKS for the normal channels to work in resolving his problem .... and had no response from the normal channels) .... then I am sure that someone in the senior management of Microsoft's Abuse Team could be contacted and that Chad's problem would be resolved in hours.

So, the question remains .... since Chad has ALREADY been waiting for EIGHT WEEKS, why can't your senior management make an exception and bypass the normal channels, contact a senior manager at Microsoft, and IMMEDIATELY get Chad's problem fixed?

Please do not tell me that this cannot be done. I know it can be done, but ONLY IF your management, and Microsoft's management really do care about providing good customer service. If they do not care about customer service, then Chad will continue waiting for normal channels, and most likely just abandon his use of Hotmail. Is this customer worth saving???? Ask your management and see how they reply.

@ langware

Sorry, but Abuse Investigation doesn't work that way. Each customer's closed account will always warrant an Investigation. And since thousands (if not millions) of users send support requests to the Abuse Team, the users will have to wait until the Abuse Team has properly followed the very stringent rules that must be followed for an account to be reopened.

If Microsoft played favorites, and bypass all the customers that was able to send a support request before the exception, that's just not good business sense. Abuse Teams policy is "First one in, first one out."

Oh, and about my insensitive answer, I'm sorry you see it that way. I usually answer that way to a lot of customers so that they get the most relevant information that they need. But hey, thanks for bringing that to our attention. I can use more improving on my writing anyway.

Thanks heaps.

@Benji O,

Imagine that your cell phone stopped working, and you called your carrier (using a friend's phone) to report the problem. Now imagine that EIGHT WEEKS LATER your cell phone was still not working. So, you call your carrier again, and the person answering the phone said:  "we only handle technical support questions, you will have to call a different department to report the problem with your phone not working." 

Would you be happy (after reporting your cell phone problem, waiting EIGHT WEEKS with no cell phone service, and then being told you have to call someone else to report your problem)? No, I do not think you would be happy.

Would you think that the person telling you to call a different number was insensitive (after you had ALREADY been waiting EIGHT WEEKS to get your cell phone service fixed)? Yes, I think that after waiting eight weeks, you would expect the person answering your call to be a bit more helpful (by putting you in direct contact with a manager who could help resolve your problem).

Would you expect to be given some preferential treatment since you had ALREADY been waiting for EIGHT WEEKS with NO SERVICE? Yes, I think you would expect to be given preference since you had already been waiting eight weeks.

Finally, if you knew that your cell phone carrier received thousands (if not millions) of calls from customers whose cell phones stopped working, and took over eight weeks to fix the problem, would you choose a different cell phone carrier (perhaps a carrier that had a more reliable service, or a carrier that resolved problems much quicker)? Yes, I think you would use a different carrier as soon as your current cell phone contract expired.

If thousands (if not millions) of Hotmail customers have their Hotmail accounts closed, and have to wait in excess of EIGHT WEEKS to get their case investigated (before they can get their account re-opened), then there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with the Hotmail Service. Either too many accounts are being closed for invalid reasons, or Microsoft is seriously understaffing the abuse team. Many people rely on their email account for critical business, health-care, and other communications. To deny a customer access to their Hotmail account for EIGHT WEEKS is very VERY BAD support. In fact, it is no support at all.

Again, consider how you would feel if your cell phone carrier canceled your service and took in excess of EIGHT WEEKS to resolve the problem. If Microsoft is serious about supporting Hotmail, they need to have a service goal similar to the following: 90% of all reported account closure problems will be resolved within five days. To tell a customer, who has ALREADY waited EIGHT WEEKS (with no access to their email account) that they must (yet again) send email to the abuse team (and then wait while the customer's request gets to the top of the queue) is insensitive.

Do you think that those customers who had to wait in excess of eight weeks to get their Hotmail account reopened will continue using Hotmail ... or do you think those customers will choose another email service. Don't bother answering that question .... as an employee of a company contracted by Microsoft, I do not think you will be allowed to post your true response. But if Hotmail's market share is dropping, then the reason should be very obvious (i.e., poor support). 

@ langware

Thank you for letting us understand your point. Like what Windows Live Benji O mentioned, addressing closure of accounts by the Hotmail Abuse Team is queued that’s why you have to wait turns. Since they’re assessing a lot of these issues, it will really take some time for some customers who just wrote just recently to have their query addressed. I also want to let you know that all of us here do value every customer as much as we can. We respect if you prefer using other e-mail provider as long as it fits your needs.

@Angela M.


Thank you for your response, but it appears that you (and Benji O, and other mods) still do not understand the point I am trying to make.

You stated:  "addressing closure of accounts by the Hotmail Abuse Team is queued that’s why you have to wait turns. Since they’re assessing a lot of these issues, it will really take some time for some customers who just wrote just recently to have their query addressed."

I understand that queries to the Abuse Team are queued, and that the Abuse Team services the queue on a FIFO basis. And that customers who "just wrote just recently" may have to wait to have their query addressed.

My concern is not with the technique in which queries to the Abuse Team are queued and served on a FIFO basis. My concern is the LENGTH OF TIME that a query remains on the queue before someone on the Abuse Team investigates and resolves the customer's issue.

Chad (a customer of Hotmail for over 10 years) did not "just write" to the Abuse Team. He states that EIGHT WEEKS ago he sent a query to the Abuse Team. EIGHT WEEKS later, Chad's query is still on the queue, and he still does not have access to his email account.

My point is that eight weeks is TOO LONG for a customer to wait with no access to their email account. My point is that if EIGHT WEEKS (or more) is the standard waiting time for customers who send their queries to the Abuse Team, then there is something seriously wrong with the way the Abuse Team is organized, managed, and staffed. My point is that no Hotmail customer should have to wait in excess of EIGHT WEEKS (with no access to their Hotmail account) while the Abuse Team fails to even send a reply to the query stating that they have received it and are working on it.

Let me ask you a question:  do you consider a time span of EIGHT WEEKS (with no access to ones Hotmail account) to be:  (a) TOO LONG for a customer to wait; or (b) NOT A PROBLEM for a customer to wait that long? So that I can undrstand your point, please respond with your answer to this question.

LANGWARE, you forgot choice (C) We don't care.  DING DING DING DING..we have a winner.

In the minds (?) of this help forum team, and of MS, we are like the people who walk into a corner store to use the bathroom, then leave without buying anything. We are nobody to them.  If they lose any or all of us as customers, MS will not hurt one tiny little bit.  They will still be the richest company in the world, and nothing will change for them.

The mod's english is slipping a little.  Can you hear it?  Read their posts out loud word for word as written, and you can hear their accents.  They are a handful of people in a country far far away, hired to appease us until we give up and go away.  That is their jobs.  It is what they were hired to do.  They don't give two craps about any of us freebie users.  To them, we are not customers, we are just users.

@CHAD.  I hate to break it to you, but your original account is gone forever.  They have no intention of doing a damned thing about it.  They are just here to keep you running in circles until you give up trying.  They get paid for doing this, and can go on doing the same thing, (Which is nothing) forever. Pick any thread at random and try to find someone who was actually helped by them.  Good luck.

Sorry to say it Chad, but just be glad you have a new account and know that it is now your regular one.  The old one is bye bye.

I would like to thank everyone for their support, or empathy.  It has now been 12 weeks with no response.  Yes it is clear the account is gone forever.  I have asked only to gain access to my inbox to retrieve some personal information that I foolishly saved there.  I have seen threads were slow responses were elevated to supervisors.  Obviously that practice has ended. 

I would still like to gain access to my inbox if anyone out there is listening.

@ CHAD

You have the support of all of us who have had to deal with Windows Live, and got no answers.  This help forum is just a joke set up by MS to give false hopes to all that complain about anything. That is the sole purpose for it's existance.  They figure that if you keep persisting, and get nothing in return, you will finally just stop trying.  And they are right.  They do this as they were trained to do.  It is their job which they seem to do very well.  And of course, MS had to hire people in another country to do this BS job.  Doesn't that say a lot about MS?

Many of us have been arguing with these morons for so long, that we have been exchanging email addresses and have become friends outside this worthless forum.  It's been that long. I started my complaints last December, and they have done nothing for any of us.

As I said before, just accept the fact that your original email account is gone.  MS does not care because they make no money from us.  In their eyes, we are freebie moochers just complaining about what we get for free. Just do like the rest of us have done, which is to move on to the new, and forget the old, that will never return.

Take care Chad.

@Chad,

You might want to try this .... go to this page:

http://windowslivehelp.com/members/MSFT-Roopa-S/default.aspx

It is the page for MSFT Roopa S. She claims to be the Support Technical Lead for Windows Live Hotmail.

In the upper right part of the page there will be a button that either says "Sign in" or "Sign out". If it says "Sign in" then click it. You will automatically be signed in (you may have to provide your Hotmail id and password unless you are already signed in to Hotmail at the moment). After you sign in, the button will change to "Sign out".

Under the "Sign out" button, you will see a rectangle with "MSFT Roopa S" at the top. Under "MSFT Roopa S", you will see several hot links including "Send a Private Message" and "Send an Email". Click either and send MSFT Roopa S your message. You may want to paste a copy the URL of your thread ... which is this ...

http://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/61958.aspx

... into your message for reference.

Ask MSFT Roopa S to look into your issue ... perhaps she will be able to help you (by having her management make a direct call to the abuse team's management and ask them to follow up immediately). Or perhaps she will be as unhelpful as the rest of the mods on this forum have been to you (by telling you how sorry she is and suggesting that you post your complaint on yet some other Microsoft site). It's worth a try but unfortunately (based on experiences in these forums) the odds are that she will refuse to help you.

As you said, your account may be gone. However, it is INEXCUSABLE for you to have waited TWELVE WEEKS with no reply. Someone should have gotten back to you immediately and had the courtesy to either tell you they would restore your account, or that it is gone forever. Getting no reply after 12 weeks is deplorable. There is no excuse for that. None at all.