Thanks for nothing, Microsoft

A little over a week ago, one of my e-mail accounts went a little haywire.

I assumed our crappy server at work, a recent switch to Windows Vista or some other online gremlin was to blame. When I was finally able to badger Microsoft into giving me access to my accounts several days and dollars later, I found that I'd become an awful, awful eBay customer with plenty of online sellers wondering why I refused to pay them.

The whole time Microsoft refused to release my account password to me was time spent by someone trying to rack up my account - which, luckily they couldn't because I have different passwords all over the place and PayPal wouldn't open for them.

In short, thanks for nothing Microsoft... you fucks.

So, I won't spend too much time bemoaning the fact that I couldn't get into my e-mail - it's a dump account as is - or that eBay didn't notice an unusual amount of activity for a week - a big hole in their customer service - but I will say that it's worth having backup account info for any of your e-mail addresses set in place, just in case.

Had I set an address for them to send my a password reset - whoever took over the account changed my password, secret question, secret answer, address, etc. that I needed to "prove" my identity to MSN - I could have caught this sooner.

It ended up being the equivalent of someone stealing your wallet and then crank calling people who you had business cards for, but it was enough to put a little start in me and you can be sure I'll be hawking my accounts all week.

Still, what went from simple frustration to outright anger - I ended up badgering my password out of a call center employee this morning - really opened my eyes to the whole Microsoft mess.

While they will claim they care about you, they don't. If it wasn't for the excellent customer support via Xbox and Xbox Live, I'd have never gotten my account back and someone would still be trying to hack into my PayPal.

For the record, a call center employee told me Saturday that the "free" version of Hotmail everyone uses is "not supported at all" by Microsoft. For the record, the Hotmail team can go fuck themselves.

(Image from: iwillteachyoutoberich.com)