Business user locked out of Tenant

Question

I help manage a tenant that has a particular user who set up her own tenant and has been locked out as her authenticator does not correctly allow her to enter in a 2-digit code to be able to access email or the admin portal. She has been trying to get this resolved for almost 2 weeks. Every time she calls the support number there is an AI answering and it does not put her through to a call assistant to help her through the tenant recovery process. Could I ask that someone contact me here to help with this recovery? I will provide the user's phone number, and the user will have all necessary detail to confirm that they own the tenant.

Answer 1

Hello @Cian Kovar,

Thank you for reaching out. Based on the information you provided, this appears to be a tenant lockout scenario where the only administrator is unable to complete the required MFA verification to access the tenant.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Q&A is a public community forum and no one here can directly contact you, your user, or collect tenant ownership information such as phone numbers or account details.

In this situation, I recommend working with the Microsoft Data Protection Team, as they are the team responsible for validating ownership and assisting with recovery of administrative access to a tenant. The affected user should continue pursuing the tenant recovery process through Microsoft Support.

If the support phone system is not successfully routing the user to a support representative, could you please share:

• Whether the Microsoft 365 subscription was purchased directly from Microsoft or through a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP).
• Whether any other Global Administrator accounts exist in the tenant.
• What support channels have already been attempted and what responses were received.

If the subscription is managed through a CSP, the CSP is typically the first point of contact and may be able to assist with escalating the recovery request on the customer's behalf.

Also, I'd like to share the prompt that has successfully helped many other users reach the Data Protection Team and create a support request:

1. Find the related hotline number for your country to call the frontline and let them raise a ticket for you: Customer service phone numbers - Microsoft Support 

2. Depending on your country or region:

For some countries, when calling the support number, although there are about 30 seconds opening as something "you can visit the link...." But you can ignore this opening and wait until the option, then "1" as a business email user, "1" again for technical help.   

For some countries, it will be an automated conversation like:    

• First, when you call the hotline, it asks what kind of problem you are worried about.   
• Answered: authenticator.   
• A: What kind of product are you using?   
• B: Microsoft 365 for business.   
• A confirmation: education or company account?   
• B: For companies   
• A: Are you an administrator?   
• B: Yes.   
• A: Do you have the other admin in your organization?   
• B: No.   
• A: You need one.... Service request?   
• B: Yes   

Important note:

• You may need to call multiple times before you are connected to a live support representative and can successfully create a support request with a ticket number for tracking. 
• If calling the support line in your region is difficult, you may try another regional support number that offers service in your language, or contact the English support line if you’re comfortable speaking English. 

Please provide an update on the current status and let us know where the recovery process is blocked. That information will help the community point you in the right direction. I hope this helps.