ACCC on Skype for Failing to Provide an Efficient Way to Get into My Account?

Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 17:27

Hi Community,

I've got a story to tell:
I've had a skype account with credit for a very long time. A few months ago I signed up to an outlook.com email address for a trip to Asia in case gmail isn't accessible. And I linked my skype account to the outlook address thinking it would make life easier. I know, I was born yesterday.

I also had set up recovery phone number when I was in Asia as I was moving around. Now I'm back, guess what, I enter my password, it takes me to an account recovery page and wants me to give a code sent to my temporary number that I no longer have access to. I had followed the alternative recovery route by answering 300 questions twice, none succeeded.

The irony is I'm still logged in on my phone, so I could prove to anyone who wants to listen, that I am the legit user.

I had 2 chat sessions with M$ support, they only just redirect me back to the recovery pages, or I could change the settings on the computer where I set the recovery phone number at first place.

So here I am, looking for options. Given that I still have $20 in my account, I should be able to do some kind of ACCC trick as part of the consumer guarantee? Surely being able to get into my account efficiently is a guarantee any service providers have to fulfil? I wasn't gonna do anything of this sort, until the agents refused to give me contact info to their supervisor by saying they didn't want to 'further frustrate' me with their supervisors.

What do you think?

Internet

Comments

  • hashtagbargain on 27/06/2017 - 17:46

    No harm trying! Good luck.

    • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 17:55
      -1

      Thanks, I'm gonna need it!

  • retiredfeline on 27/06/2017 - 17:49

    So you provided only one way to receive a code to reset the password, via a mobile number, and you didn't provide a secondary number (you can have more than two even) or additional email addresses? Why not? Can you login to live.com on your phone and add the required contact info?

    • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 17:55

      Thanks for the reply.

      Yes, only 1 phone number, and because it's linked to the email address, it must've set that to be the default email. I don't believe I had seen options to set more than 1 numbers at the time. Either that or it never occurred to me I should and just ignored the option. I only created that outlook account for skype, never actually used it for emails.

      I couldn't log into live.com on my phone. The same recovery page comes up. The skype app must have its own sessions.

      • retiredfeline on 27/06/2017 - 17:56

        What about logging with your original Skype handle and password, that should still work.

        • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 19:13

          It doesn't because it wants the second step authentication to also be correct.

  • KitchenSink on 27/06/2017 - 18:08

    Just curious, since you've linked the Skype with MS account, can you sign into your Outlook/MS account on the web? You may be able to change some security settings with the Skype account

    • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 19:12

      No I couldn't. It goes into the account recovery loop on either the Skype website or application on desktop.

      • Hazzard on 27/06/2017 - 19:51

        I think kitchensink is asking if you can log in to the email account that your Skype is linked to and not the Skype website or desktop application.

        • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 21:03

          Sorry for not being clear. Using my email address and skype name lead to the same account recovery page.

  • batrarobin on 27/06/2017 - 18:33

    It might be a bit unrelated but I had an issue where I couldn't redeem one of my 6 skype vouchers ($25 worth each) to my account it kept giving me an error saying voucher not found and I contacted Skype staff for help. I was able to convince them that my voucher was geniune and I sent them photos of the vouchers etc. Although their staff sounded really nice and willing to help but they couldn't because their systems are quite restrictive and they didn't have any way-around or any exceptions, they couldn't manually apply any $25 credit to compensate etc.

    Long story short I wasted a lot of my time following up with them but in the end I had to let go my $25 credit.

    • Alley Cat on 27/06/2017 - 19:18
      +1

      Thanks for sharing that. It's exactly what I'm worried about. I already spent over an hour chatting today and really don't want to go down that rabbit hole. It's not the credit I'm after, but the account itself as it's hard to get one without stupid suffixes now.

      On a different level, it deeply disturbs me that algorithms are essentially controlling humans. I'm not sure I want to be part of it in any way.

      • retiredfeline on 27/06/2017 - 21:23

        Basically you have locked yourself out of your Outlook account. Providers try hard to give you enough recovery mechanisms without compromising security but every now and then users will need a human to break the impasse. Google keeps reminding users to keep recovery info current, MS didn't nag you enough.

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