So i'm posting here so others can read about my horrendous experience with skype after getting my account comprimised, which i'm still not sure happened and it wasnt from any fault on my end as skype was the only account i have to get comprimised and my password in itself was 14 characters not sequential or any order, not forming any words, random capital and lower case with special characters and i never had to type it.
First off before i get into it, i'd like to address a couple of things.
Your Security
It's a joke.
The only company which prides itself so heavily on customers account security but lacks any of it's own to begin with.
The only company who sends you an email after your account has been comprimised telling you that your password and email address has been changed and then make's you the account owner jump through hoops to get it back.
Let me explain how real security works.
- Account gets comprimised, the person wants to change the email address on the account to stop the owner getting in.
Hacker requests email address change
Company sends an email to the account owner asking if they have requested an email address change, giving them a code or link to verify it's them and they have asked for it.
Person did not request this doesnt use link or password, email address doesnt get changed, person knows they have been hacked, they change their password happy days.
Now thats how your account email address policy should work.
Now to my story.
- 12/06/2015 2 email's arrive in my email addresses, one telling me my password has been changed with a link to click if i didnt make the change, another that my email address had been changed with the same link.
- log onto skype website email address / password invalid ok fair enough the emails arent a scam i've been hacked, should be easy enough to sort out (LOL.........)
- try my microsoft account credentials, bingo i'm still able to log into the account, the user has changed my profile name, email address, password and some of my person details to be that of a 37 year old cam girl from france... my contacts have been deleted and 755 new contacts have been added... brilliant, thats gonna suck.
- click the email link to fix the changed email address, password is too late now go straight to the source.... customer identity verification.. ok fill out the form to the best of my knowledge, i mean how wrong could i be about my own person details.. the only question i could not answer was when i created the account it was years ago, who keeps that information.
- get an email back telling me they couldnt verify my identity, which i was a bit shocked at, but there is another link another verification form... which is the same as the previous one but longer... so i fill this out now
- get to a confirmation screen which tells me upto 48 hours for a response... seriously? 48 hours? my account has been hacked, i have business contacts on it etc... this is unacceptable (also there is a service request number on this page.. they dont tell you it's important or anything it's just there.
- contact live support
*First time, basically useless unwilling to help whatsoever and asks if i have my service request number which apparently does not link to my account when i log a request, does not get emailed to me and if you dont write it down when it's on the screen on the confirmation page they have 0 ways of tracking it.. which is also dumb... like really dumb.
*Second time, again useless, just telling me to fill out new verification forms so i can get a service request number they can track i'm utterly shocked.
*Third time, completely lose my cool, still no help, no phone numbers, no way of getting it sorted just telling me to fill our verification forms because they cant do anything.
5 days later
17/06/2015 - after 5 days, 5 live chats, 4 verification forms, i finally wake up to my email address being changed back to MY EMAIL ADDRESS.. they tell me they verified my identity and changed my email address back to the originally registered email address.... in these 5 days i've made a new account and started trying to piece back together my contact list. but the old one is fixed... great right... no not at all.
- contact live support, i wanna unlink my microsoft account to link to my new email address and get my contact list restored to a poiint before i was hacked.
*Live support tells me sorry your account is still blocked, fill out a verification form to get your account unblocked so we can process your requests.
- Sure thing, fill out a verification form, hear back a few hours later, we were unable to verify your identity maybe you should try making a new account, here's some guides.
so now, not only using the exact same information did my account get verified and fixed, they're telling me they cant verify me and i should make a new account and leave my old account linked to all my other accounts...
- Contact live support, they are useless telling me to fill out more verification forms even though it's the russian roulette of getting verified or not. meanwhile i reply to the email i got saying i wasnt verified asking what the problem is... to which i get a copy and paste response, unwilling to even tell me what i got wrong, incase it was an old address or something. 4 or 5 emails back and forth just keep getting bull**bleep** replies, offering to provide photographic evidence of who i am while in the same time they're corresponding with me on the email address the account was registered too... when all i want is my contact list restored and my accounts unlinked so i can delete the account.
- get a supervisor from the live chat support to call me, he does his best but the "specialized accounts team" sounds useless as they cant even seem to do their jobs.
now it's the 1/07/2015 and i'm still getting told to keep filling out account verification forms and my account issues arent resolved regardless of how much information i provide or what i offer to give them to prove my identity... i'm so tired and angry and my last resort is to proceed with my solicitor for legal avenues as i've been passing on all documentation and correspondence i've had with skype thus far.
Good luck to other people.. this company is a joke and make it easier for someone to steal your account then for you to get it back in working order. Skype are the true criminals.