Anyway, this afternoon, at around 4 PM, I signed into my hotmail account and was immediately greeted by an alert. It said that some Microsoft services had been temporarily blocked because I had apparently sent lots of spam messages to my contacts (I rarely ever sign into my account, so I can assure you this is not the case). While this was a concern to me, the only way to restore these features was through mobile phone verification, which as previously stated is not an option for me at all.

About an hour later I went upstairs to play on my Xbox and was told once again to enter my email and password. However, this time, upon entering them, I was told that I could not sign into my Xbox Live account because there was "a problem with your microsoft account".

So I go back downstairs and attempt to sign into my email account, but I am told "It looks like somebody else is using your account". The account was working perfectly fine an hour prior. Now here's the problem.

Normally it would be quite easy to recover my account, all I have to do is send a verification email to my alternate account. However, because I have not signed into that account in over a year (Which is why its called an alternate account, but I guess MS doesn't get that) the account has been deleted. Attempts to sign in with said account gives me "This account does not exist". This is the only alternate email address I had linked to my original account, and I can't add any others because I can't access the original account any more!

I have attempted to fill out the questionnaire, but it's practically impossible for me. I very rarely use my email account except as the account that my Xbox Live account is linked to, so:

If anybody can provide me with a support number where I can speak to an actual human being who can resolve my issue I would be very grateful, as the support pages on the Xbox and Microsoft websites have proved tremendously unhelpful.