As my phone was stolen by the German police (yes, the German police, who assaulted me and stole my device to destroy video evidence, they have never heard of cloud sync apparently :) I naturally got locked out of my Outlook account due to 2FA.
When my lawyers contacted Microsoft, all we received were automated AI responses, including the absurd request to provide an Xbox ID to regain access to an Outlook account, lol. They stopped responding and closed the tickets of course. We escalated this matter to regulatory bodies in the EU and the USA. After a month of silence, they finally responded.
As you can see in the official correspondence, Microsoft insists that you MUST call them. Let it be known: this is not to help you. It is done entirely to leave no paper trail for ongoing legal proceedings. We demanded legal justification for what specific information they claim to require via phone that cannot be securely provided through any other method, mail, or email. They could ofc provide none, simply stating, "That is how Microsoft handles things."
As you can see, the personnel (if they aren't just AI, we firmly believe it is) conceal their full names and titles, which directly violates consumer transparency laws. No one on earth is obligated to provide a phone number to a random corporation. What if you are deaf or mute? Microsoft claims there is no other method to recover the account, which once again directly violates consumer protection laws and accessibility mandates. No company has the privilege of reducing communication methods to a single channel; it directly violates FTC regulations as well.
Stay away from these thieves. If you have ever had an issue with Microsoft, feel free to contact me. We are taking them to court, and we can defend your rights too, no fee or payment is required. Just tell us your issue and send us the exchanges you made via their consumer support. If it is finance-related, even better: we will also go after the revocation of their financial licenses in the EU.
13 Comments
Eheran@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 6d
To me it feels like both sides are about the same level of... crazy? Not sure what the right word is.
CTDummy@piefed.social · -3 pts · 6d
Also a lot of em dashes in the initial email. The phone call for 2FA is just an automated call that you input a number to confirm you’re the person trying to sign in. Also big “I declare bankruptcy” vibes from the attempt to escalate to Microsoft legal via a support request.
internetisnotthesame@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 6d
I am just replying to this comment to inform others since I find comments like this, whether stated intentionally or not, discourage people from seeking their rights by pushing the narrative that "nothing is going to happen, they will never reply or escalate anyway." If you have never needed to take a company to court, I hope you never do, but stating that serves two key purposes:
Asking customer support to escalate a matter to the legal department holds weight in court. This does not mean they actually will (in practice, some do and some don't, and that is not the main point). It gives you the leverage to state in a legal complaint/in court/whatever, whether it is with the FTC or another agency, that "we informed the company, asked them to contact their legal department, and the handling officer failed to do so." This immediately establishes that the company is acting in bad faith.
If you are already in official correspondence with any department of a corporation or government agency, they are obligated by law to forward your notice. Period. The rest is just personal opinion. It does not even matter which department you send your complaint to, if their legal channel is not publicly and easily accessible; hell, it can even be an unmonitored channel. Forwarding legal notices is a mandatory legal duty backed by law. Most companies will tell you to fill out a specific form or contact them through a designated portal and you certainly can, but you are under no legal obligation to do so.
Most people will not file a formal complaint or lack the time/financial resources to pursue a court case. Companies rely on this reality and force you to use their web forms for this exact reason: to create a labyrinth without a verifiable paper trail. Depending on the company, it might be simple to find the correct department, but let’s be realistic: how many big tech companies publish their legal department's contact address in a way that is public and easily accessible?
If the channel is publicly available and open, it is not the user's responsibility to find the exact internal routing for the legal department. This is precisely why we have bad-faith and transparency laws. The company and the handling officer will need to legally explain why they failed to escalate the matter to the competent department. Users cannot be unfairly burdened if the proper legal channel is not easily accessible to the public. Know your rights.
As you did not read the post clearly, the 2FA verification code goes to the stolen phone, which has nothing to do with the post I created here. The phone number they are demanding is simply to contact me via another phone number, which they claim is the only(!) way to prove ownership. And we are asking: why exactly, and on what legal grounds? There is no answer to that at all.
The point here is that companies cannot legally limit communication methods to a single channel. There are people with speech impairments, hearing issues, or social anxiety, or maybe you just feel under the weather and don't want to have a phone conversation. This is textbook discrimination.
CTDummy@piefed.social · 1 pts · 5d
More being realistic about outcome here, both predicted and desired. Either way, if you’re giving MS problems, all the more power to you. I just have big doubts any real lawyers looked over or were involved in this. Furthermore, most phone calls to these type of organisations are recorded. Which if you did intend to take them to court, you could subpoena, if not just record, the call yourself (after confirming you’re in a one party consent country, otherwise inform the operator you are recording).
Or any of the multiple lawyers you’ve supposedly hired would send it, on your behalf, to Microsoft’s legal team, which is what lawyers are paid to do.
More likely, having received similar communications to this when I worked at an MSP, if it even gets to legal, it’d be closed and you’d simply get a polite request for lawyers to send any further correspondence. If there’s no letterhead it’s definitely not worth a lawyers salary to look over something that doesn’t contain a filed legal complaint or notice of intent.
If this isn’t covered in the service agreement and you’ve not stated a disability to them I would be surprised if this goes anywhere. People with difficulty hearing and speaking can use relay services, wanna guess how I know? People have been locked out of accounts before, if no recovery email is set, no secondary MFA set and you refuse to call them, you’re probably shit out of luck. If you’ve got a relative/trusted person, you could have them take the call while you communicate whatever answers to the operators question.
internetisnotthesame@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 5d
Pfff, you are still willfully spreading misinformation and confirming my suspicion that you are either a troll or paid to spread this type of info so people just give up on their rights. Your source is 'trust me bro'.
This is just your personal opinion and clearly shows you are pro-corporate. What do you gain from a corporation not being punished for the crimes they commit? You clearly do not know the law; then why spread negativity? What is your gain?
In the legal system, written contracts, official emails, and wet-ink signed documents are accepted as 'primary evidence.' Telephone conversations constitute verbal statements and rely on the parties' memories or subjective interpretations regarding 'what was said and understood,' courts always prioritize written documents. Poor telephone audio quality, background noise, or ambiguous statements open to multiple interpretations and can make it difficult for a judge or jury to reach a clear legal conclusion.
Across the US and generally in Europe, recording a telephone conversation requires the express consent of all parties involved. The support agent has the legal right not to consent to recording the call from our end, that is one. Second: Audio recordings can be edited, appended, AI-generated, or modified far more easily than written documents or signed official papers. A judge can dismiss an audio recordings under the claims it is difficult to prove the integrity of them.
You are willfully and completely ignoring the legal stance here: Locking the communication method to only 1 channel is illegal. Go read FTC Section 5 (15 U.S.C. § 45), ADA Title III, EAA Directive 2019/882, EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC, GDPR 2016/679 (Articles 5, 12, and 15), and PSD2 / PSD3 (Directive (EU) 2015/2366).
Still personal opinion and ignorance. That record is for regulatory bodies; if you had read the post, you would see that they contacted us after regulatory intervention. Which one is better: not responding to Microsoft's illegal response and giving regulatory bodies the ability to add to their file, 'Hey, we didn't write anything back to them,' or demanding their full name and title, and requesting escalation to the legal department and informing the involved body about it? Your assumption that we didn't send a notice via post after this correspondence is again baseless, purely your personal opinion. Come with facts instead of your silly 'I don't think this or that.' The law doesn't care about your personal opinion.
Let me reflect your logic right back onto you: your claim of supposedly working at MSP is a lie, and you are being paid by Microsoft to spread misinformation. This would be my personal opinion, it is easy to spread misinformation just like you are doing here. Use your brain a bit, it's not that hard.
Again, your 'trust me bro' personal opinion. ToS cannot force you to state your disability, as it is blatantly clear in the screenshot attached above; we challenge them on what their alternative ownership authentication methods are. Do you see a reply from them about that, or just ignorance by them? Have you ever heard of non-delegable obligations? All Microsoft needs to do is take the government-issued ID, cross-reference it with the payment systems I integrated into their wallets, and confirm whether they match or not. Steam can do this, Epic can do this. What is so special about Microsoft that they cannot do it? ToS is not above the law; even if it directly states I must disclose my disabilities if I have any, if it is not backed by the law, it is meaningless, which circles back to the point you ignore: locking the communication method to one channel.
Stop with your bullshit know-it-all mindset; you don't know shit. Come with legal facts if you want to defend corporate behavior and feed people the narrative, 'Hey, you shouldn't even file a complaint.
CTDummy@piefed.social · 0 pts · 5d
That’s a whole bunch of words and strawmanning to dismiss the emails, appearing to be sent from an email you control, signed “legal representives on behalf of” as opposed to the law firm itself, with a letterhead. Instead of addressing my reasonable suspicion no lawyers were involved. I guess we’ll just “trust you bro”. Never mind that again, this isn’t how lawyers talk or communicate.
Prioritise not completely dismiss and it would be a recording not a memory or interpretation. What were you saying about facts? I also covered if you lived an all party consent state in my previous reply. Try reading if you’re going to say the same.
Interesting that you getting the mildest amount of push back, you reply with an ad hominem ladled rant and accusations of being pro corporate. Not once did I say you shouldn’t. What I did say was this looks like it didn’t have lawyers involved, seems somewhat disingenuous in how it’s presented here and that you’d probably be shit out of luck having dealt with accounts lock outs before. Not don’t try or that you shouldn’t but whatever given your unhinged response you can fuck off. Good luck to you and your totally real
AI conversationslawyers.internetisnotthesame@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 4d
Ahahaha, as expected you keep ignoring what this post is about: limiting the communication channels to one, which is illegal. Go cite from the law if you can support your baseless argument. :)
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 6d
You should probably open with the statement that this is a solicitation for legal services, even if you aren't charging for them.
I will tell you though, I will never, ever trust OneDrive again. I was paying for Office/Microsoft 365 for almost 10 years, which got me 1TB of storage. I had 35GB before. 15 was free and 20 was for enabling photo upload (for 2 seconds, LOL) on an old Android phone. It's been that long. So anyway, I had over 1TB, and eventually got my usage up to something like 130GB (well over my free allotment). They doubled the price. I stopped paying. About a month later, I went back to retrieve some documents. Honestly I should have emptied it all before canceling. They could have also notified me before wiping all of it. Most of it I didn't need. In any case, I thought Office docs didn't count against storage anyway. And even with 35GB still allotted to me (still shows up that way!) they just deleted everything. Partly my fault, sure, but I won't trust their storage again.
I'm a Mac user anyway. I was still using Microsoft 365 because I have decades of experience with Word and Excel. I still enjoy using Word, Excel, and Windows at work, but at home... never again. And Word and Excel were good on macOS. Apple always shows them off in their keynotes (along with Outlook) as exceptional iOS/macOS apps. That's all fair. I just didn't want to pay double the price. They decided they couldn't provide the same service as before at $60/year, so now they get nothing. (I am aware they offered the legacy price to some subscribers. They did not offer it to me. I tried to get it. It was simply not available.)
I didn't think I did, but I just checked my Applications folder to see if I have any Microsoft software on my Mac. I do not. The closest I have is Tuxera Disk Manager, which lets me read/write NTFS. So they paid Microsoft a license. I paid them $10 one time. (I don't have anything from Google or Meta or X, either.)
jdr@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 6d
Can you gdpr them?
internetisnotthesame@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 6d
I am not entirely sure if you meant whether I can file a compliance complaint, yes, I/you can. The thing is, I contacted them on my own first, around July 2nd I suppose. (I lost access to this account on June 27, 2026, and today is September 17, 2026. Whoever has access to my account can basically do anything they want with it, thanks to Microsoft not caring about the law. I will also give a bit more explanation as to why our response above might be seen as harsh)
Then they sent out this form, which I filled out completely, and even attached my government ID since I was also using their wallet system for some things, so they could cross-reference it with PayPal and other banking accounts I have linked there.
The response I received was: ticket closed, we couldn't identify this as your account. I asked for the legal justification for their action, based on what legal ground/actions they initiated and they decided this wasn't my account, and waited for a while, about 15 days or so, with no response at all. Then I contacted my lawyers, and we filed a regulatory complaint in both the US and the EU, to which they responded two weeks after those complaints were filed.
The screenshot attached here is from when our patience finally ran out. We were contacted by this dude who conceals his full name (For most people, this might seem normal, but I also come from a legal military background, and it instantly bothers me, as one asks for the full name of the handling officer, they can either give up their full name, if their policy allows it, some don't which I can respect, then they can explain this and give you a numerical ID assigned by the company, so you can contact their supervisors to file a complaint about them, you can not just ignore this request as if it never came up) If a company or government official conceals their name and completely ignore that question, I know they are going to hide behind a corporate shield and try to talk down to you with arrogance. Unlawful actions take place the moment they do this. I wish to be proven wrong one day, but every single time a conversation opens like this, it ends up with them breaking the law. I just cannot tolerate this shit.) and demands a phone number.
We asked him what the legal justification was for claiming they can only verify information via phone, and stated that we would give them one if they could back it up with a legal basis from either US or EU laws. He completely ignored it, copy-pasted his exact same reply, and said, 'Let's arrange a phone call.'
We told him the same thing: a phone number will be provided if they can quote from the law stating it is mandated and that post or email is not sufficient.** He then ignored it again** and sent the exact same email. At that point, we demanded his full name, which as we expected, of course he did not give up, to avoid individual liability and he said this is Microsoft's policy. In every single correspondence, we reminded him that he is breaking transparency laws by concealing his name and that corporate policy does not supersede the law. Of course, he ignored all of this. At that point, we issued the notice above.
After this, he still sent the very same copy-paste email, lol, two or three times more. We don't even think this is a real person but AI, but it doesn't really matter. This isn't the first time I'm dealing with a big corporation pulling this kind of bullshit, but this time I got really dedicated to getting a precedent-setting decision, so I will not settle for anything. We have to take them to mediation first, for which we filled out the forms today, because it is in their terms of use and this is how they protect their public image. But I will not settle, and take it to court, seriously, fuck this shit.
jdr@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 6d
Good luck!
internetisnotthesame@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 6d
Thanks! Appreciated!
StormDefence2024@fedia.io · 0 pts · 6d
Microsoft is a corporation not a person. Only people can have remorse.