Microsoft Account issue, need help

[Ordeith]

My daughter wanted a different email address, so she renamed her Microsoft account.
She misspelled something, and renamed it again.

The problem? She has a Lumia 710 and as we all know this pretty much breaks the phone.

She has learned the way of alias since then, and we want to rename her account back to what it was before.

No problem, right? wrong.

Microsoft has a policy that only allows you to rename an account twice in 6 months. I can't find a way to talk to anyone at MS that would allow us to set the account back before the 6 month window has passed. Does anyone have a phone number or any other useful information that can help us undo what my daughter has done?

 

[rockstarzzz]

Microsoft Support

 

[Ordeith]

Microsoft Support

Went there first. They were marginally less helpful than here so far.

 

[Ordeith]

Microsoft Account does not have a live chat.
Microsoft Account does not have instant answer support.

I haven't been in a Microsoft store but I do need to get this resolved. Would they be able to help with something like this if I visited one?

Everything goes great, until you have a problem like this and there is no one at Microsoft you can talk to that will help.

Apple Support lists phone contact as the first and most prominent option if you can't self help on their website. Where is the option for Microsoft?

 

[stmav]

When I went to get live help for windows phone it went to https://gethelp.live.com/en-us/Pages/wp8.aspx
From there I hit the Microsoft Account icon , selected contact us.
There I found an icon for chat, said wait time less than one minute. Maybe you can get some help there.

 

[Eas195]

Have you asked the same problem solving in Microsoft Answers?

 

[Talldog]

I haven't been in a Microsoft store but I do need to get this resolved. Would they be able to help with something like this if I visited one?

In my experience, they're your best bet. You're standing right in front of them and they don't want you to go away disappointed. My wife had a problem with her account that she was getting nowhere with using online support. We went to the store and they hooked her up. Not saying that will happen for you, but they do try to help and they have more tech savvy than the call center drones you get online.

 

[Ordeith]

When I went to get live help for windows phone it went to https://gethelp.live.com/en-us/Pages/wp8.aspx
From there I hit the Microsoft Account icon , selected contact us.
There I found an icon for chat, said wait time less than one minute. Maybe you can get some help there.

Tried that. They said they could help me reset the phone, but couldn't help with the account.

 

[Ordeith]

Have you asked the same problem solving in Microsoft Answers?

Yes, several days ago. No replies.

 

[Ordeith]

In my experience, they're your best bet. You're standing right in front of them and they don't want you to go away disappointed. My wife had a problem with her account that she was getting nowhere with using online support. We went to the store and they hooked her up. Not saying that will happen for you, but they do try to help and they have more tech savvy than the call center drones you get online.

I may have to try that. Nearest MS store is a 3 hour drive, so I was hoping for more a more positive response before making that journey. May just end up at one anyway.

 

[stmav]

Tried that. They said they could help me reset the phone, but couldn't help with the account.

Sorry. The only other information I could find you already knew. The whole 6 months thing. Hopefully the store might have a solution for you.

 

[RobinPaul]

have you tried Windows Phone support on twitter? https://twitter.com/WinPhoneSupport

 

[AndyCalling]

This is a tough one, MS won't help. I know of one way, which will probably net you a 1 month wait but poss 2. Better than 6 though. You need to get an Xbox 360 (or borrow). Download the daughter's Xbox profile to the box, the one attached to her MS account. If this is already in place, great. If you have to download her profile to a borrowed box it triggers a one month wait. Sign up to a new MS account with an email address she wants. If it was previously taken by you, it should become available again one month after you released it from the old account. Take care not to generate an Xbox account for the new MS account yet. Making a new account may trigger a 1 month wait, but it runs at the same time as the profile download wait so do both before waiting. Use the Xbox to move the Xbox account to the new MS account. You can't do this any other way than by using an actual Xbox 360. The Xbox account holds all her paid phone apps and music as well as bought games for windows live and Xbox games. All the stuff worth money. To transfer the Skype account from the old MS account you need to ask the Skype people to unglue it as you can't do that yourself. Unless you just make a new Skype account of course (don't let Win 8 make a default named account or it'll get stuck to the new MS account).

 

[pseudoware]

I may have to try that. Nearest MS store is a 3 hour drive, so I was hoping for more a more positive response before making that journey. May just end up at one anyway.

Try calling the MS store.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[AndyCalling]

One extra point, if you don't already have the profile on an xbox and have to download it to one, don't download it to any other xboxes during that month or the waiting period will get retriggered every time you download it to a new device.

 

[Ordeith]

Thanks everybody, but I don't have to do anything.
not even visit an MS store.

Fortunately I didn't try anything and just left the account as it was since the damage was done. I was waiting until I could get a definitive answer from MS or had done enough research to be confident that whatever "solution" I found wouldn't just make things worse.

and yesterday, MS upgraded her account to allow the alias sign on that they announced, Outlook.com team unveils new email domains and ability to log in using account aliases | Windows Phone Central

and I am happy to report that it works perfectly. Once the account was upgraded her new name is showing as "primary alias" and her old account as just an alias, but the phone connected right back up and everything is working perfectly.

No 30 day reset on the name, no 6 month wait to rename the account. Just a week and a half for MS to change their sign on and account policies.

She got lucky on timing, but they also made her very happy.

So Thank you MS for not just fixing my daughters issue, but the issue for everyone that has ever been caught by this!