Microsoft Account Cluster*uckage

[Seeruk]

Being brave I installed Windows 8 against all my better judgement, but actually I quite like it! And in itself its not a problem. What is a problem is trying to get all my various MS services under one place as it were. For example I have several MS accounts (due to moving house and being FORCED to create a new account for a new country in order to continue using xbox live for example).

What I want to achieve is simple.

I have a MS account using my own non-MS email address - lets call it bill@gmail.com which has most important things attached such as technet subscriptions!
I have an Xbox Live account which is attached to quitearudename@live.com which has unspent gamer points and allllll my game licences attached.

So the solution should be simple. Use xbox to switch my Live account to use my bill@gmail.com microsoft account.

Followed all steps untill it said "Sorry bill@gmail.com is not available". Hmmmm

Did some research and found that some point it had created an junk xbox live account to use with bill@gmail.com (probably just by visiting xbox.com while logged in as bill@gmail.com).

More research and see I can create a throwaway address and transfer teh useless xbox live account to the throwaway MSaccount. So I did that - transferred the junk xbox live profile to throwawayaddress@live.com and that went great exceeeeppppptt......

...Now bill@gmail.com is completely inaccessible. I cant log onto it (via live.com hotmail.com technet etc) as it says the MS account bill@gmail.com doesnt exist, yet when I try to create a new MS account with bill@gmail.com (via Windows 8, or xbox or live.com) it says its already taken.

Any ideas?

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Crazy... sorry i don't know why this happened. You already tried to contact microsoft right?

 

[blurredvision]

You're in for some time with Microsoft support and it might take you a while to get this worked out unless you get a superstar tech on the first pitch.

 

[Seeruk]

Not had time to contact MS yet, been kinda hoping it would be a 24 hour thing until some 'job' ran to clean up accounts or something.

But still the same this morning. All i wanted to do was unify things a bit, log in with MY email address and have access to all my services. (instead of having to log out and back in again with another account just to access my games for example)

Typical MS so far, grand ideas and Terrible implementation!

 

[rockyct]

I would email or tweet the guy from this site: http://www.winsupersite.com/ He's usually the only non-Microsoft person who actually knows how this stuff works and from what I've seen he actually does respond to emails. Of course, he's going to four different cities over the next weekish for the launches of Win8 (NYC) and Windows Phone 8 (SF), the Microsoft Build conference (Seattle), and some other tech conference (Vegas).

 

[Seeruk]

Thanks, might try that. Now been in contact with MS support and OF COURSE they do not support Microsoft Accounts over the phone. INSANE!

All I have been sent is the same stupid password reset links that don't work because the system thinks there is no account under that name.

 

[blurredvision]

Thanks, might try that. Now been in contact with MS support and OF COURSE they do not support Microsoft Accounts over the phone. INSANE!

All I have been sent is the same stupid password reset links that don't work because the system thinks there is no account under that name.

If they don't support by phone, I'm guessing you have to use email or chat? If I were you, I'd use chat and don't take no for an answer. Be sure you have an hour or two when you start, it won't be a quick process.

 

[Seeruk]

Guess what 🙂 No chat support or email support available for MS accounts. Un-f*****g-believable.

Anyway digging through a few support forums on the MS site, I see I am not the only one, there are others too in the last couple of days. Sigh, guess it will only be a month or so before they notice