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I always find the various authentication experiences to be more annoying than reassuring, but until now I've always managed to defeat whatever bizarre scheme a web site has created.
Yes, I'm fan of "Reset Password."
Microsoft though has stopped me dead by refusing me access to an outlook.com [account] even though I have the email address and password.
About three years ago someone established an outlook.com email for an organization. They passed the login info on to me. I subsequently just accessed it via Gmail for the next two years.
Today I tried to log in to outlook.com make some changes. They apparently feel that I am not who I say I am and demand some kind of "authentication."
After a half an hour of repeatedly submitting "Verification Forms" (Names, Birthdate, City, Postal Code, Captchas, Previous passwords....," entering numerous PINs, and generally jumping through hoops, I have concluded that I will never ever access this account again.
Best of all the email quoted below offers no way that I can appeal this to some kind of living being.
Is this the worst authentication disaster ever? Is there any logical reason why you would make it impossible for your customers to ever recover an account?
[Continues...]
We recently received a request to recover your Microsoft account *****@outlook.com. Unfortunately, our automated system has determined that the information you provided was not sufficient for us to validate your account ownership. Microsoft takes the security and privacy of our customers very seriously, and our commitment to protecting your personal information requires that we take the utmost care in ensuring that you are the account owner.
Please submit a new account verification form
At this point, your best option is to submit a new form with as much accurate information as you can gather. The more information you can include in the form, the better the chance you'll have of regaining access to your account. We've included a few tips below to help you fill out the form as completely and accurately as possible.
> Submit a new form
Helpful tips for filling out another form:
Answer as many questions as you can.
Use the information you provided when you created the account, or last updated it.
Submit the form from a computer you frequently use.
You will be asked to list recently used email addresses and the subject lines from recent emails. Ask for help from family members, friends, or business contacts to confirm their email addresses and tell you the subject lines of the last three emails they sent you.
Make sure to use the correct domain for your account, such as hotmail.com, live.com, or outlook.com. Keep in mind that your email address may be country specific. For example, if you created your account in Sweden, your domain would be "hotmail.co.se" rather than "hotmail.com".Ready?
> Submit a new form
Thank you,
Microsoft Support TeamMicrosoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
USA
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @03:24PM
Had a Google account for almost a decade. Was one of the first people with a @gmail.com address, etc. I had tons of docs in the Google Cloud; was the typical Google fanboi. Linked to Youtube, G+, credit cards, wallet, you name it.
Moved to a different country. Used the SAME PHONE, just changed SIM Cards.
Would not authenticate to my Google account.
Tried logging in from my fucking Chromebook Pixel which was already registered to my Google account. Used the right password. But oh noes, they did not recognize my location and wanted to verify my identity by calling me or texting a message to my number.
(You know, the phone number that was back in the previous country, that I no longer had access to).
NOTE: I actually disabled two-factor authentication before traveling, so it should never have asked me to verify by phone.
Well guess what? If there is a support number for Google, I couldn't find it in two days of searching. I found a dialog box where I could plead my case to Google in 255 chars or less. Tried three times. Each time I got an automated response to my backup email address that it was denied.
There is no support with Google. You get what you pay for. In my case, I lost 10 years of documents. I will never have access to that account again.
Trusting anybody with your data is a very dangerous game. I now reverted back to my own backup solution at home. It's easy to set up when you're starting from scratch and have nothing to backup.
Since then I've moved on to another provider for mail, another provider for smartphone/tablet, and another provider for computers. All have paid support with real people on the other end. Lesson fucking learned.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday September 25 2016, @05:26PM
get GoogleFi for now. Seriously, I had a similar situation as yours (moving trans-oceans a few times), and instead I got a SIP phone number that connects to a DTD. i.e. Vonage (there are others...). I plug the modem into the internet in whichever country I'm in and it hooks up to a regular phone. But also, it allows forwarding to whatever numbers you have.
This is the practical way of managing multiple country movements, and making sure google can reach you...
But I got GoogleFi earlier this year, and I'm going to see how well it works on my next trans-ocean jaunts...
(Score: 5, Touché) by Chromium_One on Sunday September 25 2016, @07:37PM
"Here, let us sell you a solution to a problem we created for you!"
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @08:00PM
uhm... this sounds like your fault. googledocs? really? if something is important, you have to have a local copy.
otherwise, i will mention that i've lived in several countries, i go to conferences and stuff in different places, and I've never had a problem with google locking me out. i think it did ask me about my password a couple of times, and it did send "suspicious lgin" messages to my backup e-mail, but nothing more than that.