Restore deleted alias

Question

Hello,

Because of numerous external login attempts, I have had to create an alias. However, I mistakenly deleted the other one instead of changing login rights, that's my fault completely.

I have spoken with support over 1,5 hours. First with Hukugha and then with 'supervisor' Abbad who promptly closed the chat without providing any help. I've been told the same thing over and over: 'Sorry, we cant recover a deleted alias'.

I find this incredibly difficult to believe.

I've worked in support as well and I worked at the first contact point. We had a back office that could always make more adjustments and had more rights than we do. So I understand that the first response is, no we can't help you with recovering the account. Because if they have to provide this support to everyone, it gets costly.

If Microsoft doesn't have a back office or internal team to fix special issues like this, that's quite worrying.

This isn't a new issue and although it doesn't happen often, there is still not a decent protocol set up on what to do if it happens. E-mails to this address cannot be forwarded, support won't be able to provide a solution for this either and apparently you lose total access. The only thing is that you have access to your past e-mails.

Last of all, if I deleted my email address, then there should still be a back-up on a server somewhere, right? If not, then that means I am deleting hard data from a server, which seems security risk? This also seems worrying.

This makes me all question Outlook and Microsoft in general. Yes, the initial mistake was made by me, but does that mean your account really is that vulnerable? Should I still have confidence in this service? Or should I make the switch to another service, one that is more reliable?

Would it be different if I was a paying corporate client? Because I bet it would be.

I suppose my question is, if someone could refer me to a specialized internal team or if maybe someone from Microsoft could give dedicated support with my issue, that would be helpful. This e-mail has been crucial to me for over 15 years and has been linked to a lot of personal things such as medical, housing and banking.

Because once again, I find this extremely difficult to believe that this service is so vulnerable to human error and that there is literally no other solution provided.

Answer 1

Hi Jimmy,

I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

So as you stated, this is beyond your service scope and I understand. Is there a possibility to reach an internal team that does have more capabilities than first level support is able to provide?

Its unbelievable that there is zero chance in getting an email recovered, at least as a private user.

If I try to add the email as an alias, it says the domain has been registered and reserved. The address also stayed active for multiple hours after the change, which is why I wasn’t worried earlier. From what I understand, this has to do with the time it takes until the server is updated.

This all makes me believe that the email address does still exist, no one has access to it and first line support won’t recover it because this will take too much time and therefore money.

There is no failsafe or cool down period provided, nothing. Personal data for marketing purposes is obviously stored and used till end of time, but recovering my email is to big of an ask.

Let’s not forget, that this wouldn’t have happened if hackers weren’t able to try and login to my email. I added a back up email address, two factor verification, and everything necessary from my side but Microsoft’s security system still allowed them to login and request login codes to my email.

Since it felt like I couldn’t rely on this security much longer and it would only be a matter of time before they actually received access, this forced me to take these steps.

I am beyond frustration and disappointment. It has already taken me more than a day to adjust accounts and some unfortunately had to be closed. But it will take more days before I will have everything up and running again. Damage has been done, both mentally and financially. I have lost confidence in Microsoft and their services and will likely make the complete switch.

Once again, if anyone can refer me to an internal team for special cases and issues, I would be more than grateful.

If not, then if someone could direct me where to file a complaint, that would be great. Please, not the support chat because that gets me nowhere.

And I will seriously consider some form of legal action, so any help to where to direct this too would also be appreciated.

I tried to stay friendly, but it’s hard when my frustration is reaching its peak, so my apologies for sounding not friendly.

Answer 2

Hello kevin_043，

Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

I understand that mistakenly deleting this alias has caused you a lot of trouble, and it's very distressing.

I don't intend to repeat what you may have already heard several times, but this might be the reality of the situation.

I understand you have more questions and thoughts, but this clearly goes beyond my service scope. The community is more about friendly exchanges, so I hope you understand.

Best Regards,

Jimmy.W - MSFT| Microsoft Product Support Community