Domestic MS account hacked and deleted - how to speak to someone at MS

[Ditto]

Details later, but my MS account has been hacked and apparently deleted. Does anyone know how to speak to an agent to resolve - all attempts online have failed so far.

[jmak]

I don't know about speaking to someone, but did you have any paid services from them? From history of trying to help in similar situations, proving ownership is the first hurdle.

[Ditto]

Firstly some background and more detail. Whilst I have an account with MS, I rarely use it and I think there is very little associated with it - no sign of financial issues to date. The hack came about as historically my youngest son had a Minecraft account but registered with my MS account. I think this came about when MS bought Mojang. I haven't quite got full clarity of events, but it involves the Minecraft account, Discord servers and chats as a result of using Hypixel. Essentially he got tricked in to revealing the Ms account name and then handed over a One Time Password. Clearly there is no MFA on the account - my error, but it's not something I use hence oversight.

 

My son realised almost immediately he had made an error. Within no time at all I received to emails from Microsoft.

 

The first was to say additional security info had been added to the account. The details were another email account. I can only assume an account being used by the hacker. The email said if this wasn't you, then it must have been malicious and to review account activity. At the same time another email arrived, this time saying security info had been deleted. This was my landline phone number.

 

So I went to review the activity, but it asked me to log in to my account but then when trying to do so, MS report that the account name was not recognised! No matter my efforts to recover the account, there was no way to do so. MS website even said create new account to be able to communicate with them. The form then asks you to type in the compromised account and the new account. It then says the old account doesn't exist! Despite strong efforts to speak to a human, online chat or by phone, I never found a way.

 

My son was trying the same and by some unknown means, using his own MS account (school maybe) he got an online chat going.

 

That has ultimately lead to a case being recorded with the 'Microsoft Account Safety Team' and dealing with an 'Account Escalation Request' which has a case number. Normal response times are quoted as 5 business days. That does leave a hacker a long time to continue with malicious activity!

 

During the chat phase, we were asked whether we have an Xbox One or 360. We have a now rarely used 360 and it probably is linked to the MS account. We were asked to provide my GamerTag and the 360 device id. Hopefully that will be sufficient to meet ownership proof.

 

So at the moment, it's looking like a serious nuisance. The biggest loss could be of resources my son has on his Minecraft/Hypixel account - lesson to be reinforced.

 

What I found really galling was the complete inability of me being able to contact and speak to someone on an account hack, or even report it online. Every step seemed to require login in to the MS account, and that wasn't possible.

 

Because the added email address was a gmail account, I wanted to report the incident to Google. That was equally impossible. No online chats offered, no telephone numbers that I could track. For the size of these 2 corporations, that is really disappointing, no appaling! As a last resort, I emailed '[email protected]' - the response? Nothing. I will try again today, maybe with more success as it's a week day.

 

So for now wait and see, and of recovered, MFA immediately to added!

 

My living day email and account is Google/GMAIL - that is already secured with MFA!

 

 

[Ditto]

Absolutely no response from Google or Microsoft - I'm appalled.

 

Currently no signs of attacks on any finances. Lost my wallet very recently (it was relocated) but all cards cancelled and renewed - that might have helped. I'm not even sure if any details exist on the MS account.

 

Additional info provide to MS includes that when he start up Minecraft Launcher, a new email name is listed, this time an 'outlook.com' one. Also we notice where it asks you to enter password (the new outlook.com names appears at the top, but under forgot password, it's a partial email along the lines if 'Email code to zz*****@rambler.ru').

 

Background reading on Rambler.ru is concerning. My son passed what Minecraft resources he could to a friend. Some articles I've read suggest Xbox account might be recoverable but as for the MS account, that's looking unlikely. I'm quite surprised even with a OTP, that the original email name on the account can be changed/removed without an email being set to that account before hand - to provide the opportunity to spot the malicious attack. 

[Ditto]

I'm further confused... and still no update from MS Account Safety Team!

I thought I'd create a new account with a similar and sensible name. I can't quite remember the exact steps, but it seemed to ask me to enter a verification code for my old (stolen) account - it seemed fine and normal at this point. Then I ended up going through a process of setting up as if it is a new account with the original email address as the account name. History and other details do strongly indicate this is a new account. I can only presume the old account was abandoned and deleted after the theft. I have read that each MS account does have a truly unique id, several in fact. Why is it not possible using this to restore the account to the rightful owner?

[PotNoodleTech]

I think your in a bit of a stickle there as MS probably get hundreds of personal accounts hacked per day and I doubt they have the resources to solve each and every one of them day in day out.

 

Multifactor probably would have stopped this - it's a lesson to us all for personal accounts.

 

If you have credit cards on that MS account (for xbox live etc) i would suggest you report that to your card company or put a temprary hold on it.

[Ditto]

I'm sure they do, but I have strong evidence to show it's my account! Yep, MFA might have helped, but ultimately this scenario was a social engineering one, so maybe not? IAs it's an account I virtually never use, but historically my son does for Minecraft, he's to date been very savvy! He realised his error immediately. What I find surprising is I get an email notifying my landline number is removed from the account to allow me to investigate and also when a additional email account was added. But the primary email, the name of the account, gets changed/removed and no notification whatsoever?! I do, via my son, have a case number, so maybe there is hope. Oddly, now that it appears I have the account name recreated, I wonder if the MS recovery forms now work, as they didn't previously as it said the account name didn't exist! Somehow I presume it must have, albeit with another primary email account name I guess. It's extremely unlikely that I stored any payment details. My email archives shows I have purchased XBox game pass years ago, but all my cards were renewed in the last few weeks due to lost wallet - maybe got lucky with that one! Wallet was recovered! I can also see from my account records I passed Office2019: Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Associate 4 years ago - I guess that is linked. I must have been really bored to do that! Must have been a BETT freebie!