I am done with Microsoft
So for almost 2 months I have played Microsoft's little game of oh just verify your account and you will hear back within 48hrs.
It all started when Microsoft through an algorithm I suppose, locked my account to include my Xbox gamertag that has 18 yrs worth of purchases and playtime. This happened once last year in September so I followed their lead and got my account back, added all new contact info emails and numbers. But when they locked me out this time it reverted to asking for old information that I obviously don't have. The email they wanted was ironically permanently locked by them 3 yrs ago because someone was spamming my login attempting to access it.
So for a while now I've played their game of escalate to this person, escalate to another person yada yada. I have verified my account over and over for them. Two reps have told me that I'm questions were answered perfectly. One told me he couldn't find any reason at all for the account being locked. Xbox reps finally did another escalation and gave me a link that they guaranteed would work if this didn't. The issue I've had all along is that even though the original email was changed last year, they are sending the link to it to change password etc and gain entry. I assume this as I haven't received a single response from the verification step that I've taken every time I was asked to, even when showing them that it hasn't worked.
Finally today I got in touch with whoever has my old cellphone number and was able to get back into my account with the verification code that was sent to them (thank you and fuck Microsoft). When I logged in it offered to delete all aliases and start over which I clicked. Then it said oh wait keep a spare email before moving forward (only 1 works). I then get hit with a wall to verify code on the email that doesn't work. Manage to get around this and change the email to a known working email.
They now say no changes can be made until 6/18 including adding 2fa even when using their app. I'm at my end with Microsoft. All this for nothing at all honestly. I haven't done anything wrong. Was unaware of the tactics I should play to keep this from happening like already having 2fa and turning off email and text codes to keep spamming from happening. I'm not super literate with computers like many on here so I could be missing something.
This has been a royal pain in my ass over absolutely nothing and I still have to wait another month to truly see if I'll have access back. Given that my emails showed today as updated last year, yet it asked for old deleted ones on the verification when I was fully locked out, I will not be returning to the Xbox platform. It's sad to see this being a life long Xbox gamer. My intentions are to build a gaming PC but first research how well Linux will run it with steam and of course modding communities for games such as borderlands 2. I've seen people bashing Xbox and Microsoft for quite a while now for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately I just got mine and will not be returning.