Really, I am furious right now. I wanted to use another term rather than suck (one which rhymes with suck) but I realise some people can be offended by profanity so I rowed back on the language.
Why am I annoyed? – Microsoft’s insistence that you have to log into Hotmail every 30 days or they delete all your info. I don’t use Hotmail much, but I have had my Hotmail account for years and there was tons of old email info in there. I logged in today (after obviously more than 30 days) and I find all my info has been deleted by Microsoft.
Why impose such a shortsighted policy of deleting people’s info after 30 days when your main competitors (Yahoo! and Gmail) don’t have any such policies as far as I know.
Serves me right for trusting Microsoft with my information online, I guess! I won’t make that mistake in a hurry again.
Update: – I notice as well that my account has been downgraded from 250mb to 2mb! Insult to injury.
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Gmail deletes the entire account after 9 months. That I can understand, but 30 days is far too short.
Andrew, thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Another important difference between Gmail and Hotmail’s policies is that with Gmail you can log in using POP – I have my email client app polling Gmail every 30 minutes for new mail. Consequently, I am unlikely to ever fall foul of the Gmail 9 month rule – I would have done the same with my Hotmail account except you have to pay Microsoft for that privilege.
I think we need to create a new website. For the greater good of the community: StopTomFromSayingFuck.com
Yahoo’s policy is to disable an email account after 3 or 4 months of inactivity. But I think they keep your email around longer, you just need to re-register and say you’re still interested in keeping the account. I’m sure they delete the mail after 6 months or something like that.
Erm.. I do the same, Tom, and, as far as I can remember, always have.. with my Hotmail account.
Bah.. no I don’t.. it’s a HTTP server.. oops.
It’s still on my polling list though.
peteb,
as far as I know you can only get access to Hotmail Plus using POP – this is a paid service.
The free service from Hotmail doesn’t have a POP interface – unlike the free Gmail service. Unless you know something I don’t?
No.. you’re right, Tom. I have the Plus for the storage and attachments options.. and admittedly it’s been a while since I upgraded the account, but I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t have the polling option available.. perhaps that was changed for the free version when the newer accounts were launched? [that's just a guess btw]
Let me say it for you: Microsoft, You F@#$!
When I discovered my account erased, I was ticked off too. When will Microsoft get the idea that they have to give and give freely in orde to win goodwill of the people, which is worth much much more than simply dollars and cents. Gmail is more open about it, giving us the ability to not only access our mail via POP, but also to export our Gmail contact list. That’s more realistic, especially for the long run. Darn it, don’t trap your users!
once upon a time, hotmail was on Solaris. And all was well. Then Redmond bought it up and migrated it to IIS and yea, the screams were heard throughout the known world (since Hotmail was pretty much it back then…)
nothing’s changed I see.
Does Outlook Express still have HTTP access to Hotmail? It used to… very slow over dialup though, which is what was available the last time I looked at it.
Umm….does anyone actually use hotmail anymore? I just have it for the memories when I used to use dial up. Ahh the good old days…
A way of getting around having your email deleted would be to use your hotmail account with MSN messenger. From what I remember it automatically logs into your email account n’est pas? I seem to remember one of my mates signing up my hotmail account for a pic a day of old ladies getting it on (shiver). As far as I know its still getting delivered…
Yahoo delete your mail after a period as well, though I’ve no idea how long it is..
Where’s Robert Scoble when you need him?
Mark and Valehru, thanks for commenting – I’m on a Mac though so no Outlook Express – MSN Messenger – hmm, that would have been a possibility alright but at this point I am mot going back!
Fishy, I left him a comment on his site!
Hmmm…it’s always been like this because it’s a crap service. Wouldn’t be bothered with all the fuss though.
I forwarded this to the Hotmail team and will see what we can do. Sorry about that.
Piaras – I had a lot of old mails in that account – I have had the account for years, hence my anger.
Robert – thanks!
Thomas, unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to get it back. It was a business rule set years ago. They are changing the business rule in Windows Live to 120 days, though. Sorry, I agree this totally sucks.
tom, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last. frankly, there is no excuse for leaving valauable information on msn, gmail and the likes without having the most important stuff backed up, so stop flaming and blame yourself.
as mentioned above, use your msn account with messenger to avoid this in the future or even better, slam the door on microsoft.
personally i’m using miranda im (light-weight, open source, covers the most popular platforms incl. skype now, portable, smart, a bitch to configure, i love it
Goddamn fracking MS!
Robert – what you really mean here is there is nothing we will do – I’m pretty sure hotmail has backups in place but they are not about to expend the necessary energy to re-instate my account from backups.
Mattie – this was an old account with nothing recent of any value in it. You are right, of course, it was my fault – as I said in the post:
All my emails these days comes into my own domains.
now thats quite some heavy stuff here, tom
ponder this for a moment: MICROSOFT still has YOUR data, you just forfeit all rights, just because it’s ‘a business rule set years ago’
If I may play devils advocate for a moment… Hotmail is free, and as with all free products you know there is some catch, we all thought it was just cr@p storage space well now we know its also a cr@p login policy, to coin a phrase it has a a “trigger happy dead mans handle”
No problem.
Ambrand, Gmail is also free and they don’t have the same crappy policies – the free part is irrelevant to this.
Yes, because gmail was developed after hotmail, it had to outperform its competitors well known weakness’ in order to gain market share. However, doubtless it to has some problems. Again, if its free there is a catch.
Emailed you with a thought on this.
@mattie, thanks – you are correct, it does bear further thinking. I’ll let you know what, if anything, transpires.
@Ambrand, the ‘weakness’ in Gmail is that you are displayed ads in the web interface. This means they use content scanning algorithms to read your email. Of course, because of this ‘weakness’ it is in Google’s interest to ensure that they never lose any of your emails.
You can always get around the ad display in Gmail by accessing Gmail via POP – then you never see the ads.
@Simon – got the email, thanks.
If I may play devils advocate for a moment… Hotmail is free, and as with all free products you know there is some catch, we all thought it was just cr@p storage space well now we know its also a cr@p login policy, to coin a phrase it has a a “trigger happy dead mans handle�
I signed up to HoTMaiL long before Microsoft bought it. As I recall, this was a decision of MS’s, not the original owners. Tom is right – it is very unlikely that they no longer possess the actual emails, and the ‘business rule’ is just a marketing gimmick to differentiate from Hotmail Plus.
Have to agree with you, re: other free services not having this ridiculous rule. Yahoo has never had such a such, neither did the much lamented mailandnews.com, or to the best of my knowledge ANY of the former or currenly popular free online mail services. Additionally the attachment limit and default mailbox size which still (as you discovered) apply to new hotmail accounts, make the service a public joke.
Really enjoyed your interview at the blog awards podcasting session, could you remind me..what was the name of the OPML guy you were interviewing?
Hey Gareth,
thanks for the kind words. James Corbett is the guy you are looking for.
Tom-
First of all, Sorry this happened to you. The only thing I can really do is:
1) Appologize
2) Tell you that we are working very hard on changing the current policy
We do not actually back up our site. That would be impossible. GMail also does not back up their site. They have redundancy on the network for failures to hardware.
When an account is deleted, it takes a few days for the data to make it’s way out of the system. In your case (I don’t know how long it was deleted) the chances of recovery are unlikley.
Having said all this, I can understand if none of what I am saying matters. All I can do is appologize for what happened, and for the rather restrictive and poor expiration policy and let you know that I don’t consider the current situation acceptable (see #2 above).
Given the size and scope of the service, decisions like this take a while to work through.
Thanks,
Omar Shahine
Windows Live Mail
MSN SUCKS … :S
Why use hotmail ? its so stupid and shi*tty,
Just use Gmail, its the best ^_^
Yh my friends just had the same problem, so when researched came across this blog is a bit harsh he had 700 emails, Hotmail used to allow the pop for free accounts but no longer run this and havnt done for nearly 2 years now, do you know how i can get hold of a gmail account?
regards
EB, sure – send me your email address and I can send you an invite to Gmail – me email address is [email protected]
Hello:
I have used hotmail for the last 3 years. Because my account was old, I could access it through Outlook Express, which I used diligently for quite a long time.
I purchased a mac about 1.5 months ago and the first thing I did was install Entourage so that I had outlook functionality through the mac.
Yesterday, my email was all deleted at hotmail. Why??? I do log into Hotmail from about once every 2 weeks, and I also use Outlook from time to time now, but there has not been any period of inactivity at all.
My problem/question is this:
I have about 99% of my email on my winxp laptop, is there any way that I can transfer it back into hotmail?
To Omar Shahine, excuse my language, but WTF? I use Hotmail through a secondary program, EVERY day!!! I have sent 2 emails to Hotmail about this problem, but nothing so far, but seriously, no notification, just plain, deletion…seems a little unreasonable.
Seriously, if anybody can help, it wuld be great.
I log in at my old Hotmail account every 15 days or so.
You can imagine my surprise when I opened it the other day and found EVERYTHING DELETED, even though I had definitely logged in at my account less than a month ago.
I am sure about the dates, because I visited my Hotmail account to get birthdays which I needed to add to my Google Calendar. And Google Calendar clearly shows the date I did this.
Now Hotmail has increased my storage quota to 25 MB, I guess hoping that what they have done to me will be forgiven and forgotten.
MSN, you really SUCK!
not only these, but when you login to hotmail now – you have to use the full userid @domain.tld
which sucks (they should gather this from the header (e.g. hotmail vs msn, etc.)
secondly, i want to see my inbox upon login not the stupid screen they show
third – it’s pretty slow compared to yahoo and gmail.
i remember when hotmail was good (pre microsoft), but MS has ruined it. why?
oh well – thank google for gmail!!
Can only agree completely with the above. I have a hotmail which I’ve used for 2-3 years for eBay communications and as such had a large bunch of receipts etc on that hotmail. However, I don’t buy something on eBay every month, so when I tried to log in this morning after enquiring for an item, I found all my data gone. That’s around 50 receipts gone in the wind, just because I didn’t log in for 30 days :O. All my warranties gone, f*ck!
I’ve never given this a second thought, but it really goes to show you unfortunately can’t trust Microsoft with your data, they are way too careless
Of course, I should have backed up the data but I actually thought my Hotmail was one of the safest places to store the data. Oh well, think again.
Im changing to Gmail that’s for sure
Hi,
Am trying to backup my messages in hotmail. I have
Oh man oh man, got the same complaint here. Years of old emails, vanished. To the argument that “it’s a free service, you play by their rules,” can the counterargument be made that, since we’re subjected to ads every time we log in, from which Microsoft draws revenue, it’s not like we’re total freeloaders?
For me, this loss is rather emotional – I knew this account was inferior to my shiny new Gmail model, but I kept the old warhorse around (though I didn’t visit as often as I should have, obviously) cause it’d been with me through countless moves, breakups, new jobs, etc. That stuff is comfortable old baggage you carry around for years without properly unpacking.
To the suggestion that I should have copy pasted this stuff into a Word document or something, I mean, come on. If I was that on top of my shit, I would have long ago forwarded sacred emails from my Hotmail account to something newer and sexier, and pulled the plug on the old thing altogether. It’s foolish to rely on a web-based email service as storage, but tons of us do it, and rather than punish our idiosyncrasies, Hotmail should have indulged. Gmail beat them to the punch. Gmail is everybody’s kindly, permissive, net-based grandma.
Since I’ve got nothing of value left in my newly cleaned-out Hotmail account, and I don’t feel like watching more junk mail pile up like so much moss on a stone, I’ll just let it die again, send a cautionary email about this saga to 100 of my closest friends, and never look back. I guess?
go to google and write
1- YOU SUCK
2- Press “im going to be lucky”
3- Check out that easter.
:=)
Note that MSN Messenger might consider you ‘logged in’, but Windows Messenger definitely does NOT…I logged in with that Windows Messenger account every day, and it recently just had the 30 day purge. I had years of emails on that as well.
I empathize!
I don’t know who any of you are, but I just typed in: My whole hotmail inbox just got deleted- and you came up. I had years of letters in that file, including pretty much the entire correspondence from my first relationship. so, thank for providing such a shit service Microsoft. Thanks, also for making it really clear that you were about to delete me. Also, thanks for having the nerve to ask me what junk I want when I try to find my old emails.
I feel terribly stupid. I would rather have the robots at google read my crappy love letters; at least they let me keep them for a while.
this blog seems to have the right idea though.
This just happened to me. 8 years of email, gone. Emails to my crush from a really happy time in my life. Gone. Fuck you, Hotmail. I’m more pissed than I ever thought I could be.
I am sure Microsoft is doing their best to offer good software. Too bad coders do not think of overall structure before they embed their code into something that is already working.
Why is it now that I enter Live Mail it will not allow me to click the back button to go back to where I was at? One claick back means that I have to re-enter my login and password. Another point here. Hotmail used to add the @hotmail.com when entering the system. It does not do that anymore.
I too lost two accounts full of email stuff that I had diligently tried to save for over four years. I was stuck in hospital – did not get the chance to get into my emails with the 30 day window. Now the pictures and stuff that I wanted to have avaialble when I went on holiday are no longer there. So I can understand that this 30 day rules needs to change to something more realistic.
I signed on last night to find 8 years of e-mail messages deleted from my ancient Hotmail account. I am still in an utter state of shock and customer support has informed me that they will not restore any of them. It’s not as if I had actually been using that account frequently in recent years, but I did have years of my life documented there – all gone. There are many reasons someone may not be able to sign on in a 30 day span. I will ONLY be using Google’s Gmail now. I hate you Microsoft.
I’ve had my Hotmail account for about 10 years now. TEN YEARS.
Memories of some of the best times of my life. Messages from friends I’ve lost all other contact with. Back when there was only a 2 MB limit, this was the stuff I chose to save.
Ten years, gone like that.
Fuck you, Hotmail.
heh i give up caring bout emails and past, wuds it for? leave it has a memory oce its gone probly loose a shit load of bad mempries to. specially if u was raped online cause u fell asleep at he keyboard lol. (as u can see emails and messaging have detoriated me brain) microsoft is to blame anyway lol.
Just logged in to find all of my emails gone. As most people, I didn’t use it because of how horrible it was but logged in every once in a while since it served as an archive of my emails over the past 5-6 years. I also signed up for Paypal with it and wanted to keep my contact email the same.
Atleast now I have the incentive to break all ties with it.
I can’t even believe it has been 30 days since I last logged into hotmail. It hasn’t been 30 days since I logged into messenger. My last 5 years of messages are gone. Sure it’s nothing I can’t live without but some good things, addresses, and I still legitimately used it on at least a monthly basis.
Hi. same things just happened to me. really ticked off. usualy i wont always go on the computer after ive just come in from work. and when i do try, sometimes msn just plays up big style and doesnt even let me sign in to my hotmail account! dont know if its just me or what!
i can see why hotmail is crap! 30 day limit! why the F@/K do they limit you to that when like you say other providers like yahoo and that give you atleast a couple of months! MSN has really gone OTT this time!
Yeah! Hotmail is really suck. If the people were to use Google Talk or Yahoo! Messenger more than they do with the sucking MSN Messenger, I’ll never use this stupid service anymore.
Yes just ahppened to me, unreal. fuck microsoft, I will never buy any of there shit products again. God I hoping fucking google comes out with a OP, I would gladdly pay $300 for it over microsoft shit.
It happened to me too! All my emails since 2003 have been deleted. It’s insane! But what can I do? Can I get them back!?
Hm, something really weird happened to me. I’ve been using my MSN account for 5-6 yrs now, and I’ve recently discovered that the oldest email I have is from 2004 (although I should have many before that time). I have never neglected to not sign in for 30 days (even though msn is not my primary email provider), so I do not know why my email from years back is not there. My sister also only has email from the past two years even though she’s been using her account for 4 yrs. OUTRAGE!!! I’m trying to contact customer care, see what they have to say…
I think you don’t even need to forget logging on for 30 days to get your emails deleted with Hotmail. I check my emails maybe 10 times a day. And every couple of days I loggon via MSN messenger too. Yesterday morning I could not log on because it said my password was wrong. I know it is not a hacker thing because it happened in the past as well because I was continuously logging on from different machines and there were web certificate issues (all bullshit) etc. Anyway I recovered my password using the secret question and logged on to the account. And then the big shock. All my emails were deleted even from the trash can folder. I have no idea what kind of stupid policy or bug could cause something like that. It is always the same Microsoft thinking it is smarter than the people using its products and continuously doing things behind closed doors. What can I say?
Are you guys saying there is no way to resurrect those emails back? And it is perfectly legal for MSN to purge emails with 30 days inactivity? I feel terrible of losing my 8 yrs emai history for this stupid policy, and I feel like I want sue them…
I too use hotmail. I’m here surfing around looking for a way to remove OLD hotmail accounts from my windows messenger service. I can’t figure that one out. Anyway… I like hotmail for one main reason. I can go almost any where and get my mail from any computer around. I also have LOST much from hotmail due to not signing in at least once a month. Many people use hotmail and yahoo for gaming sites. They need to sign in with a valid email addy. Certain other sites are free for a 24 hour period. People create 24 hr email addresses and change them everyday. Some have several per day. I am sure the MASSIVE build up of short term emails must be draining. So as far as a bussiness goes. It would be better bussiness sense to delete the weight. Plus microsoft wants people to PAY for the service of course. So for those that find it difficult to log in within a 30 day period. They may pay for an account. It may not be easy on the consumer. But again, this is all bussiness.
Jim, that might be a valid argument if Yahoo! and Google didn’t have competitive products which don’t have any such ridiculous restrictions and don’t try to get people to upgrade to paid accounts.
Ok…here is another thing that may help those that find it hard to log in once a month. I have several hotmail accounts. Due to a Work email, a private email, friends and family email etc. I put each of these emails on messenger service. When I log into one of them. I am notified of mail. Seems easier to me this way. I check mail more often and don’t get mail deletes.
Jim, one of the big problems with Hotmail is that it doesn’t allow you to collect your email via POP – you have to log in through the web interface.
Both Yahoo! and Google allow POP access to their respective email offerings so you can access your email from your normal email client application (Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird, etc.). This acts as a login to your account so you get to access al your email through one application and, because it counts as a login, your mail is not deleted.
Microsoft, at 30 days, have the shortest time after which your email is deleted and make it the most difficult for you to actually login to prevent your email being deleted.
This just happened to me and it sucks big time.
I have had an account for over ten years. In that time, I have never failed to log in outside of this time limit. I guess I see myself as a valuable customer, especially since I believe I gave hotmail some very valuable technical ideas regarding spam filtering, which were ripped off, which when implemented some six months later were announced as revolutionary at the time by M$’s marketeers, but I obviously made the mistake of giving them to MS for free, to which I had to push even for a “thank you for your suggestion, it will be considered”. I wasn’t expecting payment, but a subscription to one of the new (LIVE) pay accounts would have been nice.
I am so thankful I moved my day to day mail to yahoo and gmail around that time, so not only now do I receive the pop3 access, but much less spam (due to better implementation of my idea), better interfaces, and most importantly less of a time limit.
With hindsight I could have made a bit of cash as a privateer on this venture, but was silly enough to believe it would benefit the greater good. Even so, Microsoft even screwed up the implementation of this! Hence my account lay stagnant, collecting emails off long lost friends who still had that address, and an archive of important emails that I had been unable to get onto another media because of my prior reluctance to pay for pop3 in a substandard mail service. Little did I believe the day would come when MS would say I hadn’t logged in for 30days.
However, this came today. Due to a holiday and recent firewall issues I cannot be 100% that I logged in to my account within the last 30days, but I am fairly confident I did so. So I come to my mail account today and all is gone.
So, thanks for fack all Microsoft, not only did I have no way of archiving old email out to file prior to this issue (via free pop3) so my mail was protected, but I now recognise even more the shocking
b) you not consider
And sorry Omar Shahine, whilst I’m grateful that you recognise the issue, the turnaround time on such enhancements is abysmal, and shows the respect that microsoft have for the guys that built your company by recommending and developing your products.
Suffice to say, if Microsoft turned around and offered “Sorry your account has been deleted due to lack of access, but you can get back all your mails if you upgrade to Live now, else say goodbye forever” I, and many others would have cringed but gone for it. Unfortunately hotmail must be the place where microsoft inspiration dies. RIP.
Sorry, meant innovation, but care would do as well!
The same has recently happened to me! And for no reason at all as I check my emails daily. I have had my account for the last 8 years and my inbox was 75% full with hundreds of emails….mostly just sentimental stuff!
I opened my email account 2 days ago to find only 28 messages in my inbox spanning over the last year (I know there were definately hundreds of emails from the last year but for some reason there were just 28 random emails left!). Strangely enough any emails I had arranged into folders are still there….so that was a bonus of sorts.
I wrote to hotmail to find out about what had happened and to see if I could get my emails back. ‘Glenn’ wrote back and told me he noticed from my information that I used Outlook Express to check my hotmail account at one time and that hotmail cannot get these emails back when they are downloaded through Outlook Express. I did use outlook in around 2001 but from reading this website that service is only available to paying customers now….which I’m not! And I know fine well I’ve not used Outlook since about 2001 anyway…..AND have had two new computers since then so thats definately not the problem!
Glenn then nicely told me that he would try to recover my emails but if he did not manage this within the next 72 hours then they would be permanently lost. I replied to this email twice and as of yet I’ve not received another reply.
To add insult to injury Glenn then added at the end of the email “You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service.”…who said they give me a consistent and effective service! Consistently they appear to be deleting people’s emails and are effective at doing it!
Finally, someplace to unleash fury at the Live Mail access problems for hotmail. I am certain it is a deliberate attempt to extort a paid account.
A paid account? Why would I want that? I have a Gmail account, a Yahoo! account and unlimited accounts on several domains I own.
I have no interest whatsoever in having a paid account.
Although I don’t believe in the extortion theory: Some people may not want to lose their hotmail address. So they’d rather pay.
soooo shitty,
i have a wedding photography job tomorrow morning. all the details of it are on email that i realise now have been deleted. the exact schedule is on email….i mean my god what am i going to say to these people. i feel like a dick head…for not realising what happens after 30 days so i could be sure to back everything up properly. i understand that it gets done now and its not really an issue if we new about it. i dont think its told to us newbies very clearly at the begining.
this sux
I just had mine deleted a few days ago. And the worst of it is, I don’t want to switch to the cubersome Live version which may in the future have the business-rule changed.
And the old-hotmail doesn’t cut it because they can’t seem to have any consistency whatsoever. Sometimes when I click ‘back’ I go to the screen i was at before (i.e. reading a message). Othertimes I’m thrown to my Inbox. User experience should be consistent. A button click should always do the same thing, not some random choice!
And gmail is just not good enough for me. I can’t switch out of that stupid annoying ‘conversations’ view. *rolls eyes* I have a few threads in my gmail inbox where I have more than 30 emails in one thread. WTF? How’s that convenient for me? It should be an option, not the only choice to have ‘conversations’.
And yahoo…well, I’m not used to trusting Yahoo with my email + omg so many ads.
Hi I just found out that all my hotmail and email contacts were deleted also!!! I am really ticked about this!!!! Why don’t they warn you about this or send you a heads up (that would be nice) instead of just deleting all your info!!! I’m not sure what to do about this and want to get my info back…asap Help! Anyone with info please send it to me
Thanx
I am new to hotmail, and really only signed up for MSN. However, just a word of warning, yahoo did the same thing to me. I hadn’t logged in to my yahoo account for a couple of months due to a move and new job etc. Everything was deleted. I feel quite bereft. Gmail is definitely the way to go. ANyone know if there’s a way of saving messages in hotmail so they don’t get deleted after 30 days. Now I just forward them to my Gmail account, but that’s a bit tedious
Cheers and sympathy to all
Andie
Fucking MSN and Microsoft…..I was waiting for a really important file from a partner from abroad, a mp3 file, that got deleted after almost 30 minutes of molasses like transfer.
Who the fuck they think they are? I paid for the piece of shit they want to “protect” namely XP. How dare they delete the files just because they think they might be may be harmful?
my problem is that i did not use the mail account for more than 30 days once so my all old messages are deleted.. pls get those back for me as they were really imporatant for me. kunal maniar
my email id is [email protected]
thank you
Same here. 12 years of emails. More or less stopped using it unless for transactions and account setups 4 years ago. So I have highschool emails, fan replies, just a lot of memories gone. My reply from them, the files get deleted, then purged from the server where even there technical department can’t retrieve them. So that response prompted “DELETE HOTMAIL ACCOUNT”. No more hotmail. I believe there should be some sort of policy for long time users especially as I have used hotmail longer than more dot coms. Oh well Cie la vie! ASSHOLES!!!!
I got a message that I can not send more mails today since I have exceed my daily quota???!!! about 10 mails. did not know about this and has not happend before and I use hotmail everyday. /lotta
MSN: THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE CORPORATE POLICY
I’ve just returned from 2 month vacation and was horrified to check my MSN to find all of my prior emails and contacts were deleted?!
Given trivial memory costs for email storage today and the new competitive landscape with innovative firms as Google, it is disconcerting to understand how a company like MSN who was a pioneer in email is now behaving in such a manner and shutting out future Microsoft clients of its products who are obviously mad as hell. I assure you if you do not resolve this issue, I will not buy a single Microsoft product again.
It is my hope that MSN will do the right thing as a corporate citizen and review its policy to benchmark against the best practices of industry and its competitors.
Here’s hoping for the best but planning for the worse.
A grieving MSN client
Better back up all of your webmail into an Outlook Express or similar program on your computer (using POP).
Gmail has a problem of its own too. Here is a thread I’ve found: “Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions” at
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/28/gmail-disaster-reports-of-mass-email-deletions/
So actually about 60 Gmail users have lost all their emails.
It’s hard to trust any web-based mailbox in a long term! Can you be sure that in 10 years, on a perfect day, all of your Gmail’s mailbox won’t be gone like what happens with your Hotmail’s mailbox today?
So please do backup folks! And good luck!
Its “FREE” and don’t expect much from it, there are millions of users and if they don’t clear it soon they will run out of disk space. If you don’t like it just get a paid POP account. Its not easy to handle millions of accounts especially when they are giving it to you FREE OF CHARGE!!!
Quote:
“I’ve just returned from 2 month vacation and was horrified to check my MSN to find all of my prior emails and contacts were deleted?!”
There are lots of internet cafe around the world no matter where u go even the hotels. You have a choice to log in for a few mins once a mth, its not hard for you to do so and i do believe they have an agreement signed when you sign up for the e-mail account, read the agreement and if you don’t like it just don’t sign for it ;p
I am so upset. I just found all my e-mails dating back to 1998 have been deleted!
Is there anything that can be done? I’m very sad.
Well, guess how I arrived at this page…
This is yet another proof of how much M$ values your using their services. Too bad we never learn. F… you, Bill.
- Beta User – Free my a**!!! The money these people make through advertising and wotever else is astonishing!! it’s free for a reason, to get us interested. Why do u think everyone in the whole world knows about hotmail? its a joke that a company that big and with so much backing can just tell you to bugger off bcoz u aint used the accountfor a few weeks. money grabbing f***ers!!! they don’t give a rats a** bout us. Emails since 1998, i move house, internet is f***ed for a while, cum bck andeverything is gone. piss takers!!!
i still got my contacts but fat lot a good that does i only got 4 and they were from ebay waaaaaayyyyy back when i got some ultima stuff i use my emaill all the time it show i pay bills and stuff i got no message nothing i log in today to check my tv bill and bang wth is this live crap never seen it before well all my crap is gone so ill never see it again no point in going back i dont take it in the tail pipe on purpose if i dont have to least bill gates coulda bought me dinner first he is a billionaire after all
I am a customer of the service since its original owners way back when. Gotta be close to 10 years. And like many people I had alot of memories, addresses and other information there. I logged on pretty regularly, every few weeks on hotmail and certainly within the last 2 weeks on MS Messenger.
And I log on today to find it all destoyed.
It is just shocking that a company, especially one as profitable as microsoft, would screw over so many customers like that.
I appreciate the whole ‘Dont trust a website with your critical data’. Yeah ok, but just because we put something in an attic instead of a safety deposit box doesnt mean we ascribe 0 value to it.
And I completely dont buy the ‘they have too many accounts and need to delete the 1 day wonders’. First of all, thats covered in their ’sign in within 10 days’ policy. And second, how about a break for people who have had their account for years? Is that such a innovative concept? 1 month of not logging in for each year you have been a customer?
Seems like many industries treat first time customers, and 10 year customers differently, but heck what do I know.
As for the ‘You should have read the TOS!’ thing. Um, that policy wasnt in place with the original hotmail company, when I signed up for the service. While Im sure I have blindly agreed to whatever dozens of TOS they have put in front of me since then, you have to be kidding if you think Im going to scour your 20 page TOS everyime I use my email.
I would just prefer to not deal with a company which has such shocking disregard for its customer base.
Oh and for the record, its now been over 14 months since Omar Shahine came here and claimed that they were working to change this. 14 months?!?
While I have no idea, I suspect it didnt take them 14 months to implement this account destroying policy.
30 days? Get serious.
No, the information wasn’t critical but it was still important.
Can’t you figure out the cost of lost trust can’t be made up for in computer memory savings?
Shame on you Microsoft.
Wow, Omar! I guess I didn’t appreciate what you meant back in MARCH 2006 when you said,
I suppose given MS’s history of pushing back release dates, we should have known that “a while to work through” would mean “never.”
Years and years of my fiance’s e-mails are gone, because she happened to have a difficult, busy time at work. Adoption papers that she had hoped to share with her daughter… more, more, more. She’s devastated. (Yes, shame on her for trusting the Web to save these and other treasures. That is not a particularly helpful sentiment right now.)
I, fortunately, use Gmail for my real mail; my Hotmail account is only for junk mail & I’ll change that now. What else can I do? I guess I’ll get a PS3 instead of an XBox 360 (I have an XBox now), make sure that my next computer is a Mac, shun anything else that has the word Microsoft. What a shame.
Irony Department: Just read this Wired article today — http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_microsoft.html. So much for the fabulous new Microsoft.
Mike,
we did in fact change out expiration policies. If you are using Windows Live Hotmail the expiration is now 120 days (up from 30 days).
-Omar
i was wondering if u can track ip addresses because some kids i know hacked my account because they told me they were going to change my name on msn messanger. and i want to prove they did it but i dont know how to check where u last signed in at by useing the ip address. u can use thier email i know that. plz help me!!
Hi guys, guess how I got here…
I really don’t give a damn if they delete my mail or not,
I’d just like to have a simple notice before they do so.
WTF is the point in asking for a secondary e-mail address if
they don’t even use it to give a nice heads-up before flushing
years of memories down the toilet. I hope Microsoft goes down in flames some day.
2001 -2007 GONE
Everything has gone. I am sure I had logged on within 30 days. Why wasn’t I contacted via my secondary email which they requested.
I am totally devastated. I trusted microsoft. I am still in shock. No point in keeping hotmail now, they can go to hell.
Another things is………why leave all my contacts information??? If you can leave that why NOT leave my designated folders !!!!!!!!and all my cherished files !!!!!
Omar,
Not to split hairs, but I don’t think that starting a new service that one has to affirmatively opt-in to, and leaving the old one in place, is a “change” from what you called “the rather restrictive and poor expiration policy” in Hotmail that you didn’t consider “acceptable.”
The difference between fixing an existing problem and creating a different product that doesn’t have the same problem (or, at least, not as badly) is an important one — especially when we are discussing, by definition, people that wouldn’t have checked their e-mail to know that they needed to change to Windows Live Hotmail.
I think that those who posted after I did would probably agree that the “change” hasn’t completely resolved the problem. But I understand that this may be the best that MS could do. It’s just a shame.
Mike
Not to mention the overzealous spam filters which deem ANY mailserver on a residential IP as a ‘blocked sender’, sending your email to your hotmail contacts into god knows where without even a bounce back message!
there was this sent email that i need to print and i need to submit it to the lawyer as a proof. i left my desk for a few minutes and when i came back it was deleted by hotmail itself. i was horrified! thats the only proof i am holding from a cheating company…now i am totally helpless…thanks to hotmail.
What is this about Hotmail waiting 30 days.
Last night when I used my Hotmail account everything was fine.
Tonight I logged in and got the new Windows live Hotmail. I didn’t ask for this.
It had none of my messages. I lost about 100 emails. I am very upset.
When I went to the “classic” version my emails were gone.
I have had to take an hour fighting this problem, giving Microsoft feedback, being forced to answer a 6 minute survey when I clicked to not take the survey. Microsoft is really messed up.
I know that a lot of people hate Microsoft. I am sure that their own employees must have sabotaged them in this. It is too bad that the management didnt’ catch it.
If they can’t find and restore my emails I just will have lost all of the confidence that I have ever had in Microsoft and its products. What is likely to be next?
Judi
Judi, if you don’t mind, can you send me your hm account to shahineo at hotmail.com so I can look into this.
-Omar
To All On This Thread:
I am Judi’s husband and I have been trying to help her solve this problem. Judi is not a computer person. Regarding the 30 day period on using her Hotmail email account she had told me that she had used it within 24 hours, but that use was just a forward of an email to her account from another email address she has. She didn’t actually log into her account. She hadn’t done that for over 30 days. So with egg on my face I have to retract my earlier comments and say I was wrong and Microsoft was right.(I hate to admit this but the facts are the facts)
Something of value did come out of this. That is a complete explanation from Microsoft techincal support of their policy
on this subject. I refer you specifically to the guidelines about half way down for a summary of their policy.
Hello Judi,
Thank you for writing back to MSN Hotmail Technical Support. My name is Benji and from what I have gathered from your correspondence with my colleague Paul, I understand that you want to recover your e-mail messages from your [email protected] account. I can only imagine how inconvenient this must be for you and I understand the importance of retrieving those lost messages and explaining what has happened to your account.
I have also checked our records and verified that your [email protected] has been marked inactive. This happens when your account is not accessed through the Hotmail website (www.hotmail.com) at least once in a period of 30 days. When an account becomes inactive, all e-mail messages and personal folders are deleted. If the account remains inactive for 60 more days, the Contacts list is deleted as well. If you are unable to reactivate the account for a total of 120 days, the e-mail account is permanently deleted from our system.
As Paul mentioned, we cannot recover deleted messages from an account that was marked inactive because these are permanently deleted from our servers. I have also verified with our technical staff that we do not keep a backup of these deleted messages. We have to do this to prevent our system from cluttering up and adversely affecting the delivery of efficient services. I apologize if I cannot fulfill your request as we do not have the tools to recover messages that are no longer in our servers.
Here are some guidelines in order to avoid the same problem in the future:
1. Sign in to your account at least once within 30 days.
2. Sign in to your account directly. You need to manually enter your password in the MSN Hotmail Sign In page in order for our system to detect that you are still actively using your account. If you access your mailbox through MSN Messenger and others where you do not manually enter your password, our system will not be able to detect that you are actively using your account.
3. You may also want to sign up for the Windows Live Hotmail. In the new free e-mail service improvement of MSN Hotmail, the Account Inactivity Policy has been reconsidered and was increased to 120 days. If you are interested, please visit:
http://join.msn.com/mailbeta/features
4. MSN Hotmail subscriptions (like MSN Hotmail Plus and MSN Premium) exempt users from the account expiration policy. If you would like more information, please visit the link below:
http://join.msn.com
We appreciate your understanding regarding this matter and your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using MSN Hotmail.
Sincerely,
Benji O.
MSN Hotmail Technical Support
10 years, I may (or may not, Im pretty sure was within 3 weeks) have screwed up once, and my entire account was deleted.
What a completely absurd policy hanging over your head, each and every month. Month after month, year after year, screw up and forget once, even after 10 years, and thats it, all your email is destroyed.
I noticed Omar skipped a couple of the more salient points:
1. Some of us signed up BEFORE this policy was put in place, before it was owned by Microsoft. Tell me when I agreed to your TOS before you say I have.
2. What is the point of not warning people? Screw up once, lock them out of their account for a week or whatever so the message gets through. Or, seriously, how about just sending an email to the secondary email address? What else is it for if not to warn customers about the service, Microsoft collecting personal information for other reasons unrelated to Hotmail?
You know, I have never been at all aggressive about Microsoft. They do their thing, I buy their software, was never a hater. But now, after this completely inexcusable policy, Ill never use any of their optional services again, for anything ever.
An enormous amount of trust has been destroyed by this ridiculous policy, still in place OVER A YEAR later.
today i clicked on the thing that said get hotmail live for free, so i clicked on it to see what it was about and then when i went back to my inbox it had the new version and it sucks!!!! i want to know how to get my old email back!!
Well, I signed up for Windows Live hotmail a couple of months back. My friends mentioned the 30 day thing, but, quoting from http://get.live.com/mail/options :-
“Account expires after 120 days of inactivity.”
so I thought they’d extended the limit to 120 days. Over 30 days pass by without logging in, and emails sent to the hotmail address are suddenly “undeliverable”. I log in and, yep, all emails deleted. And no warning sent to the secondary email address.
I’m annoyed – I’ve lost two months. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose 12 years.
I can’t believe they don’t have a backup system in place – it really isn’t difficult at all. They just want to save money.
i lost all my email because I was automatically upgraded to hotmail live and didn’t check my email for a two weeks because I had really important exams at school. Now everything is gone and I am very unghappy. I was not given any notice that my account was about to be deleted and it was less than 30 days
my father works for the european commission who has been threatening to fine microsoft millions of dollars per day for anti-competitive activities. I am sure that his colleagues would like to know about this manner of dealing with customers!
if i don’t get my emails back i will move to gmail and hate microsoft for ever – is that really the kind of publicity that you want?
i am 15
I am glad to have found this thread! On Monday I was shocked to find nothing but empty folders… and something called Windows Live. It had only been 2 weeks since I last logged in, and I always log in directly from the hotmail.com page.
Omar, can you be sure it wasn’t the introduction of Windows Live that triggered my messages to be deleted? I never signed up for the service and I last logged in within 30 days. Why do I have the Windows Live interface? Why have my emails disappeared?
Hotmail should say at the login how long it’s been since we last logged in.
If it comes down to it, I’d like to know how to delete my Hotmail account without ingoring it to the point of expiration. I’d like to keep the account, but on the off-chance I change my mind I want to know how I can delete it myself.
-Toni
I am feeling a physical pain in my heart. I have cried so much that I’m sure if I have anymore tears to cry.
I logged onto my account just 2 days ago (having accessed it just last month) and to my distress, found EVERYTHING absolutely EVERYTHING deleted and replaced with bloody Windows Live! I only had one contact for that particular email address – my soulmate.
Everything that was ever corresponded between us, hours of typing, pouring out emotions, laughs, characters, memories…anything and everything sentimental GONE! but where? and for what? it mean s*it-all to hotmail and the world to me!
Now my soul mate is gone (died recently) and so are the emails. I couldn’t access them due to absence. They were the only reminders of what we had..in words. I didn’t even get a warning from hotmail, nothing.
I am shaken and distraught…this is breaking me. I just want to speak to someone in the support group – who shows sympathy, not some f*cking automatic response. Shame on you! It’s like losing something in a house fire.
I just want to make one comment. Surely microsoft would be able to recover so called ‘permanently’ deleted emails if they were involved as evidence in a criminal investigation? Well, what makes our sentimental emails any different??? Sorry is not good enough. Please I ask for retrieval, that’s all! Thank you
Toni-
I have investigated a dozen or so cases where people have claimed they have logged in within the 30 day period and 100% of the time, our logs showed that this wasn’t the case. Sometimes it’s because people assume that 1) logging into messenger or 2) sending emails to your account counts as “logging in”. It does not.
Does this 30 policy suck? Yes it does. Are we doing something about it? Yes we are. For users that move to Windows Live Hotmail (this is automatic when your expired account gets re-created) you will get a 120 day expiration. For users to remain on MSN Hotmail they are currently on a 30 day expiration although we are looking to change that as well.
If you wish to close your account immediatley, you can do so from the help menu. Search for close account.
Sorry if this has caused you any trouble.
Ceil,
I posted above about my fiance losing her hotmail (May 23 & 27). I fear that there will be no end to these heartbreaking stories. Microsoft’s response is mechanized and repetitive because there is nothing else to say — they have an awful system; they know it; they acknowledge it’s awful and promise to change it; and then they don’t.
But that’s just computer talk. I cried when I read your post. One of the things that my fiance lost was an e-mail that her sister sent to her just before her sister died tragically — the last she ever heard from her sister. How do I hug someone when that is lost, trying to tell her that things are going to be all right? They’re not. How does saying, “It’s Microsoft’s fault” make her feel better? It doesn’t.
I’ve tried not to vent in my posts but your note is a reminder that not all e-mail is clutter. Microsoft treats our accounts like vacant offices — if we’re away for long enough, Microsoft assumes we’re not coming back and just throws everything away.
I can’t fix this for you and Microsoft won’t. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Mike
ps (to the group): I have begun to feel bad for Omar, the Microsoft employee who’s stuck with the task of responding to us and can only say that Microsoft is working on it. In March 2006 he wrote that “we are working very hard on changing the current policy.” By June of 2007 he was able to say that “we are looking to change that.” It’s obviously a zero-priority item for Microsoft, and I imagine that Omar is not in a position to change that.
Mike,
It’s not fair to say that we didn’t change it. I clarified that above.
The expiration policy for Windows Live Hotmail was moved from 30 days to 60 days and now 120 days over a period of about 16 months.
The expiration policy for MSN Hotmail was not changed. That is the policy we are in the process of evaluating.
They are two different services, and as such have different expiration policies.
The reason we expire accounts by the way is an unfortunate side effect of the number of accounts that are signed up to send spam.
This whole situation is complicated by the fact that there is a balance between trying to get those accounts to expire as quickly as possible while also not expiring legitimate email accounts.
BTW, Mike, you are correct in that I am not responsible for the policy around expiration. However, I do influence the policy. I make it clear that this is unacceptable and unfortunatley this is an issue we evaluate with a bunch of other priorities. Not to say this isn’t important, but that it is something that takes some time for us to evaluate and budget for.
Add me to the list of those who lost years worth of emails. I was a previous MSN subscriber, so I didn’t give any thought to the deletion policy, because my messages had been there for years. I sign in today to retrieve a download code I need, and find my entire account is empty. Sorry, but notwithstanding the above explanations about spammers, etc., MS just doesn’t get the bigger picture. Faith that my stuff is secure, and is actually there, is the paramount concern with online email. Without the faith, goodbye Hotmail, and goodbye recommending it to anyone.
Omar,
In fairness, I have said it before, there is no problem with the Hotmail 30-day expiration policy.
The problem is with the lack of POP access to the Hotmail account.
I have a Gmail account and a Yahoo! Mail account. I haven’t logged into either in over a year via the Web.
However my email client software logs into both account every 30 minutes when my computer is running and so they never delete my email.
Omar, why doesn’t Hotmail or Live Mail allow POP access? Fewer people would lose their email if POP access was allowed. Or maybe getting people off the service actually helps your bottom line?
Mike, thank you so much for your kind-hearted response. I am very sorry to hear about your fiance’s sister. I really am. I know these are just words, but I would give you a hug if I could.
I agree with every word you said regarding microsoft – I can’t express the emotions churning in me right now. Hotmail is cruel.
Omar it’s interesting you have a go at Mike for what truth he had to say, but what about my say, my f*cking cry for help? I got a reply from a guy in your technical support saying that he apologises for the inconvenience. That’s not good enough. He couldn’t have cared less. Typically, it was just an automatic response where he’d cut and pasted my name into sentences.
Omar, see if you can help me. If microsoft have really advanced so far in technology, I have no doubt your team has a way of recovering lost data. Put hotmail user’s minds at ease! Prove that you’re working on bettering the policy. Make us happy and satisfied! Why don’t you? because you’re all too lazy and unbothered to waste valuable time – I’m sure you’d rather duck out the back and have a ciggie, probably comparing OUR stories and complaints to other work mates eh?
I’m not sorry for typing this. It may be out of hurt and frustration but hotmail has destroyed me and many other people! Give us a number to phone your technical support on instead of this back and forth email bullshit!
Hi Tom-
At this time we don’t offer POP access.
However, you can get the desired effect (logging into your Hotmail Account regularly) by using the new freely released Outlook Connector and Windows Live Mail desktop client (the upgrade for Outlook Express).
This will not address the issue of using other third party clients, but at least it allows for free access to your Hotmail account through a mail client.
-Omar
I’m really curious about something.
All the free mail providers (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail) have expiration policies. In the case of Yahoo it’s 4 months (same as Windows Live Hotmaail) and in the case of GMail it’s 9 months.
Given that we all eventually delete mail if you do not login for that given period of time, is the issue just the number of days here?
If you didn’t log into Yahoo for 4 months and they deleted your mail, would you be as upset?
Omar, the only link I could find for this said it requires Windows XP to work – no mention of a Mac client. Did I miss something or did Microsoft miss the Cluetrain once more?
I can only speak for myself Omar – the number of days is a big issue alright – my Aunt lost all her mail when she was in hospital for a couple of weeks. I lost all mine when I didn’t log in for several weeks. You have read man of the comments above. Hotmail’s restrictive policy is giving Microsoft an atrocious reputation for customer service.
However, the lack of POP access is also a huge issue because it forces web login and none of your competitors do this. It has been over a year since I logged into my Yahoo! Mail account but none of my mail has been deleted because my (Apple) Mail client logs in for me and downloads my email all the time.
Tom, Yahoo does not provide POP access for free. GMail does.
If you are using a Mac, Entourage and Outlook Express have always supported connectivity to Hotmail.
Is the point here that we shouldn’t be upset because Microsoft’s product is only a little bit worse than its competition? That’s a curious approach to handling customer complaints, and certainly is not a statement I would have expected from a (historical) industry leader.
Frankly, I don’t know whether I’d be as upset at other ISPs if I had the same awful experience I’ve had (and continue to have through this discussion) with Hotmail. I expect I would be.
But what I *do* know is that dozens of people are complaining about the same thing on *this* string about *this* ISP, and that what MS keeps saying is that (a) everyone else does it, (b) there’s another MS product that we should switch to, (c) there are good reasons for this policy, and (d) over and over and over, MS has other things to do that are more important.
Obviously people aren’t satisfied with these responses. Tom’s statement that “Hotmail’s restrictive policy is giving Microsoft an atrocious reputation for customer service” is spot on. I’m only one customer but, as I mentioned in my first post, will be avoiding MS products in my personal life and recommending that my friends and family do the same.
Mike
Sorry Omar, I hate to contradict you but Yahoo! does provide POP access free. I have been collecting my Yahoo! Mail for over a year now via POP and have never paid Yahoo! for the service.
Omar, forcing me to use one of those products is the same as forcing me to use a browser.
Of the two products you mention – Outlook Express is defunct. There is no version of Outlook Express for OS X. And if I want to use Entourage I need to purchase it.
In any event why do I have to use one of your mail clients to read my Hotmail? Have Microsoft learned nothing from the reputation destruction they suffered from forcing IE on people?
I never stated that anyone should switch to another product.
What I stated was that the replacement for MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail, the expiration policies are 4 months. Anyone can upgrade to Windows Live Hotmail today and get the new expiration policy.
The discussion here has been about the expiration policy for the service that we are retiring (MSN Hotmail). That service has a 30 day expiration.
So, if you want to avoid this problem (for 4 or so months), all you need to do is upgrade at:
http://get.live.com/gbb
Tom, Yahoo advertises POP as a premium feature:
http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com/
I’m not sure why you get it for free.
No one is forcing you to do anything, I’m only pointing out that there are alternatives. You seem to be insistent on POP, and that’s fine. This is not the right service for you then. However, there are tens of millions of folks who do use Outlook and Outlook Express on Windows for which there is a free way to get Hotmail.
With respect to offering POP, we are always looking to add functionality to our service that people are asking for. This is obviously something we’re looking at (just like changing our policies).
O.K., I have been hating hotmail for some time but have given the address out to everyone I know plus lots of business contacts. I’ve had this account for many years and am very frustrated with the piles and piles of spam I get on a moment to moment basis, to say nothing of them sending my contacts into the junk mail box on a fairly regular basis, while dumping the same B.S. spam over and over filling my box up. So, not being very computer literate and not really understanding terms like POP, etc. I am at a loss as to how I can back up my years worth of stuff before it disappears. Then I will change my address and dump hotmail for good. I have yahoo. myway and time warner so I sure don’t need this,but I want to save my stuff. Can someone advise me on this please?
Thnks,
April
Hotmail just plain sucks. My hotmail account was my first ever email account and I used it before Yahoo! and Gmail came on the scene. Despite being a hotmail account owner since 1999, they actually have the gall to delete all my mails because I didn’t login for 30 days? That mighty pisses me off. How stupid can MS be? Do they need the hard-disk/archiving space so bad? How utterly dumb of them.
Instead of retaining their loyal customers, only Hotmail / Microsoft can be such an ass, they delete their customer’s emails and drive them away forever.
With no mail in my hotmail account, there’s absolutely NO reason for me to login again now. And who uses hotmail actively anyway? People who’ve not heard of Yahoo! Mail or Gmail have definitely been living under a rock for the past few years!
So long, Hotmail. Hope you realize that you’ve been cold for a while now. In case you didn’t notice, the EXIT sign is on the right.
same thing happened to me…all my information was gone. awhile ago…gmail and yahoo are far better…hotmail SUCKS….
Hotmail, is the pits! I had another hotmail account as well as the one I am running with now, but because I didnt log in within 30 days , they deleted my account, what a shower of arseholes, they would wanna cop the fuck on , dickheads, so what will they do next??????
I am an old-tyme Hotmail (web interface) user, and also an Outlook Express user from my home computer. Two questions:
1. If I upgrade to Windows Live Mail, will I no longer be able to access the upgraded account with Outlook Express?
2. If I exclusively use Outlook Express to interact with my Hotmail account, is the 30-day clock ticking?
Glenn-
To answer your two questions.
1. You will still be able to use Outlook Express after upgrading.
2. Logging in from Outlook express is counted the same as a web login.
Also, when you upgrade it’s not 30 days any more, but 120 days.
Hey all…
I have been unable to log into my hotmail/MSN mail account due to a strange “you need to verify you are 18 by giving us your credit card number” message?? Though, from reading all these posts, I have a sinking feeling that even if I am able to finally access my account, all my e-mails and contacts will now be gone as well.
Anyway, being a recent victim of identity theft, you can appreciate my reluctance to enter a credit card number to access my previously free hotmail/msn account. Have searched for ages trying to find a customer service contact number or online live support to see if this is a legit message or not. Has anyone else encountered this? Oddly, I am still able to access my “account info” with all my previous credit card (tho now expired) info… though I am unable to delete said credit card info.
Thanks for reading and I am so sorry to hear of the losses everyone above has suffered. =(
Jesi
oh – btw april,
to answer your question, it’ll be time consuming but i would suggest going into your hotmail account and forwarding each piece of e-mail that is important to you to one of your new e-mail accounts.
also, if e-mail is deleted after 30 days… is there a time limit as to how long the hotmail/msn account will “accept” mail?? i prob’ly haven’t logged into that account for over a year – is it even still active after that amount of time??
thanks!
jesi
Another person burned by hotmail. Email from 1999-2007 GONE! I’m furious… I can’t believe there hasn’t been a bigger outcry (press coverage!) about this.
hi .i have also fallen foul of microsoft, having an old hotmail account and going on holiday returned to find no more access to hotmail as this had now changed / upgraded to windows live trying to access old mail which included activation key for a very im portant account and hey presto no access nice one ms it will probably cost lots to recover needless to say forward thinking is not always perfect as they say those behind you are not always backward
thankyou s
My hotmail account is used for spams, and my gmail account is use for emailing.
what if u want an account to be deleted do u no how to delete an msn account?
can any one tell me how i can delete my msn account
can someone tell me how to delete my account
This is ridiculous! I was in Iraq, and I come back – all my emails are gone! No wonder Microsoft is losing people to Google on a daily basis – what great way to drive away your clientele.
I think your lucky it got deleted ( third party style ) it saves you all the hassle. Just take it as a God e- send!!!
I had my hotmail set up the way I wanted and today when I accessed my account microsoft had installed another version WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND WITHOUT MY ASKING FOR IT!!Does anyone know how I can get my old version back? This is what I would expect from Bill “anything for a buck” Gates!!I consider this as malicious as adware or spyware.
All my mails were deleted too… there’s no way I’m logging in there again in my life.
I hate hotmail with a passion.I had gone the 30 days before and my folders were still intact. I logged in after the “windows live” makeover and all my stuff was gone, except for my contacts list.What the Hell! I lost pictures, Precious emails,memories, stuff i was saving and should have been safe unless there was a global computer crash! 10 Years worth of my saved memories, and important doc. lost because of some stupid policy that everyone hates.
The guys at microsoft are so stupid!!!
They deleted my entire mailbox and contacts, it was my first web-based mail dating back to 1998, all the years of traveling around the globe, people I met…
all gone…
I will never ever use any microsoft service.. how can they expect people to use microsoft Live if they kill their users?? Why did they pay so much money to buy Hotmail if not for the user base???
This is just outrageous.
I agree that I should have backuped things but I still can’t see why would M. would be stupid enough to delete users history.. I had about 3MB total storage used.
Yossi
Hotmail has gotten worse for me. Thinking something was wrong, I reset password and now I am unable to retreive my email in either the browser or outlook express. I had a free account that was grandfathered in for recieving via outlook express. If you follow the guides from microsoft regarding hotmail problems, it does not help in any way. I read from one blogger that emailed microsoft over 40 times to resolve his problems and nothing was reported to him as to why there is a problem other than the verification implications to curb spam. I changed browser settings and insured nothing was in the proxy fields and still no resolve. I do not use proxy settings but attempted once and accidently left something in one of the fields that was greyed out but removing did not resolve the problem. There is no report from microsoft of a problem other than hotmail is not accessible from the windows live screen at this time. That response was only recent. It does say you may be able to access through another site although I cannot get another site. This is really a denial of service. I have had my free hotmail account for about ten years with no problems until now. I know the problem must be on their end but their lack of telling the public about their problems only confirms their lack of respect for their users. By doing searches I have found these problems have been going on for some time now. I am inclined to react as the blogger who wrote microsoft over 40 times and drop the service completely and opt to consider other operating systems too as he has reported to microsoft. It is a shame that microsoft has a blatant disregard for the customers and the problems have been apparent for quite some time. It has been since last weekend that I could access my hotmail account and I am thankful I have my contacts preserved in outlook express so I can at least contact them regarding my email change. Although I must find a good one and have seen many going to google or gmail. Plus I am seriously considering an operating system change to rid myself of microsoft completely. I guess microsoft’s ignoring of the problem means there is no problem as far as they are concerned. If they were truely concerned they would at least admit they are having a problem and offer some insight into how it will take them the resolve the matter. It also sounds like the only people you are allowed to complain to are in India or Pakistan with little commnand of the English language and little understanding of microsoft services or problems for that matter.
Hotmail sucks in every way
Sigh, I agree too -_-’
Almost cried when I logged on ‘n saw the exact same thing; all my old msgs deleted, just because I’ve been so busy for the last 6 or so weeks and hence couldn’t afford to check my mail within the limit. I just wish there was a way to retrieve what has been deleted, so that its not permamently down the drain
I’ve been logging into my hotmail account atleast 5 times a month. I log in last night and find my account deleted… this is the third or fourth time this has happened to me in the past 10 years or so that i’ve been a hotmail member.
Personally im done using hotmail now, this was the last straw for me. There was no reason to delete my account, yet it was done anyways. And what further ticks me off is that im constantly signed into MSN messanger with that address.
Time to start phasing out hotmail from my life.
U THINK MSN BASIC SUCKED? CHECK THE WINDOWS LIVE. IT MAKES YOU WANT TO PUT A BULLET IN YOUR FACE.
I need my Mail back from lost month
Hi!
I have just transfered my hotmail account into yahoo.com. It seems to be great, that I have all my folders, except drafts, sent and junk!!!! and emails therein too. It collects by proxy from my hotmail account also. I’m hoping just that I don’t need to keep going back to hotmail, to log on in their browser.
Not seen any comments here about that yet, but will keep my fingers crossed. Hope Yahoo can stick the boot in..finally
Yes, Microsoft do indeed suck. I’ve just logged onto my account to find it has been transferred to Windows Live and that all my email for the past few years has disappeared. Way to go Microsoft! I will never use another one of their products, so thanks Microsoft for making my decision about whether to buy a Mac or PC so very much easier. It’s no wonder all their customers are defecting to Gmail really, and I’m the next in line.
Bravo Microsoft!
Anya
So long to Hotmail. I suppose I’m not the only sucker from reading this list. Yes, I’m just as pissed as everyone else but I can’t understand it took me until I lost everything to find out about the policy??? HELLO MICROSOFT F**K You You lost another one.
Coming to this conversation late but I fucken hate hotmail too.
They suck….My yahoo account which is supposed to collect ‘Hotmail’ in ‘other mail’ can’t collect anymore. It id for the first week and now nothing comes in. I guess MSN have thrown another spanner in the works.
W******!
is there anyway of getting my contacts back
Hmmm…I’m sure I’m going to be the ass on this board, but, though I have an occasional problem losing emails while in the process of writing them, I have had nothing but fair experience using Hotmail. I’m not a great fan of MS and it was really only by chance that I signed onto Hotmail back in the 90’s. Despite a few irritating glitches (my ’save draft’ option actually always used to delete my drafts, and nothing would stay in my draft folder…so i always saved to Word…now with the newest version the ’save draft’ option functions, for example)I have experienced nothing but a perfectly usable free mail. I was a little disappointed by the recent change in the pages appearance until I realized that it functioned better than before.
I just wanted to say that Hotmail is a service offered. It comes with conditions like every other offered service in the world. Since there are other options available, it your responsibility if you use their service. If their conditions don’t suit you you choose a different service. Otherwise its kind of like being on a low sodium diet, buying a pack of salted peanuts, wolfing them without bothering with the ingredients list, then throwing a fit when your blood-pressure skyrockets because you think all peanuts should be packaged without salt.
In response to Colby……..I don’t know what you have been reading BUT if you look and read carefully MOST of us DID follow the guidelines set out by microsoft. That is what we are complaining about. Yes people are complaining about the guidlelines but if it were simply users not following the guidlines, then we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
Surely you can see that MOST of us did log on regularly and have had years of emails deleted.
Leanne, I realize that I must be missing some very fundamental point here. When you sign up for the service you read the part that states that information will be deleted after a 30 day period of inactivity. At least I read that. Knowing this doesn’t make it any nicer or easier to cope with when you loose lots of valuable and personal information. That part I do get. I also read the blog carefully. In fact now I have read through it twice in an attempt to fish out what I seem to be missing. I think the difference in our understanding of the problem is very subjective. Perhaps if all of my information had been deleted I would feel differently than I do now. I don’t like the 30 day deal. I don’t think that it is a very reasonable condition. But I don’t think that finding a condition unreasonable is solid ground for placing blame for the consequences of not meeting up to the condition at the door of the people who set the condition.
Colby,
You are missing my point. I did sign in within 30 days. I used hotmail regularly as did many other users and still found everything for the past 6 years deleted.
Yes, you are right. A number of posters have lost everything despite signing in several times in a month, and this sucks. I stand corrected.
I say no more.
On occassions I login into my Hotmail account, and one day I did check into and found the whole account converted to Live and also saw no sign of my old messages, important stuff. All that’s left are my contacts once had on MSN Messenger.
This might be the worst yet migration I ever experienced.
mental note – never use ANY web based email service – although my alternative is a MS product!!! ARSE. Microsoft exchange is a must – all emails downloaded and stored, no issues, this latest incident has just proved we mean nothing to MS, its just the adverts and sponsors that they are interested in. Enjoy
I log on everyday and after 15 years of service they deleted all my files with no warning.
Thanks Bill
Dear word, i cant believe they did this to me…to all of us. i actually dont even know what to say but i have had my account for about 6 years and i had my laptop stolen, so when i finally was able to buy a new one, i log on, and poof like magic everything gone.
i left all my most precious, intimate and important emails in my account, its really not fair.
i now have a yahoo account. but in all honesty nothing will give back what they took. i dont even understand why ppl use hotmail.
FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!
THE WORST PEACE OF JUNK I EVER USED!!!
All my precious and intimate emails, all gone… after years of use.
Hotmail, worst free email, ever.
Hotmail didn’t suck for me !! BUT now that Windows Live Hotmail is in place I may end up cancelling the hotmail account I pay for because now I can’t tend to my email with friggin Windows Live coming into play. They just couldn’t leave a good thing alone !!!
Thanks for pointing out that MS Hotmail sucks:
I have a ban for no obvious reason.
I am a tutor at an Academy for Arts and Design and all at a sudden I can’t send mail to my students with a Hotmail address.
Very inconvenient, and as a Mac-user I have ever more reason to hate Microsoft.
This was just to blow off steam, thanx…
i had an account with hotmail and i sort of thought it would last forever, but obviously it didnt which really annoyed me, so when i went to check it a year later (why a year? i had to move and didnt have computer access for a long while) my account had been removed.. i used to have Yahoo before hotmail which lasted forever but i stopped using it because i couldnt send or recieve any mail, which is supposed to be the whole point of an email service…
I think they they all suck, but hotmail is the worst. For some reason, I couldn’t get on this morning. Thank goddess, I have gmail and yahoo. They aren’t much better, but what can you do? Perhaps dissatisfied users can start their own company. The corporates have had it their substandard way too long
I am also very furious right now. few days ago, hotmail wasnt opening properly and when i checked in my inbox. everything! as in everything is gone! and i dont know where the heck it is. and i dont have any idea who to contact.. there were a lot of important mails! d*mn!
Dears,
Dissatisfied users have been joining forces for many years already to provide all sorts of alternatives to M$’s software… it’s called Open Source, and everyone is allowed to play – for FREE! So first, get Gmail and stop sweating the e-mail problem. Then, download PCLinuxOS or Linux Mint, install it on your PC and say goodbye to M$ and their illegal market-hogging forever!
JP
just got a gmail account.
if micorsoft buys yahoo, I’m gone.
I’m using pclinux os now, not bad, I’m mad
yeah am not a big fan of hotmail to but u know most of my relatives uses that peace of junk >:)
hotmail sucks, yes, today all my mails, i dont even have backup, mails from 1997 are all deleted.
i will never make this mistake never let anyone do that too.
Apparently time has nothing to do with it.I have never gone past 30 days.. I usually check mail 3 times a week. When I went on today, all mail was gone..They could at least give you some warning..
I was just going through my old emails in my Hotmail account. Many of the older emails with attachments couldn’t be read. (Got a message that they had been deleted.)
In several cases the attachments wouldn’t open. Or pictures/files would be truncated. (Only the top half of the last picture would show. Or a video would cut off before the end.)
very odd behavior.
Hi I have just made a new hotmail account an to my horror I can not send any more than 10 contacts at a time grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr BUT with my old email account with hotmail I can send more than 10 WHATS with that.
Why can’t I send anymore than 10 contacts at a time?
You should be glad you don’t have to deal with hotmail anymore. Most afternoons I get “windows live unavailable”. Get real hotmail. Is everyone checking their hotmail account and making it impossible to log in? I hate hotmail, and am in the process of switching to gmail.
Blackberries are know to do this so if you use one then that could be the case. Never had a problem with lost email but I usually archive mine to my local computer ever year or so.
here we are 2 1/2 years later and the same problem exists …. because they allow it to I was in the hospital for a while and the last thing i thought of was logging into my email account my google account is fine but my older… 7 years older email account with dozens and dozens of emails. addresses and photos gone… and the same responses some have posted here were cut and paste and sent to me from “support”
I never understood why so many seem to hate Microsoft now i know …because they are willing to throw away 7 years of goodwill for the price of a few megs or gigs of drive space when the cost of 1 terabite would cost them $50-60 7 years …gone… so they could gain access to a few cents of drive space and $1-2 of outsourced Indian time to recover the account if they wanted to bother
but penny wise pound foolish the saved a few dollars and it will cost them in the long run I will hit them where it hurts xbox 360 ? no son sorry not getting it My wifes laptop we just got will be returned and I’m buying a macbook her new cell phone /pda has windows mobile getting an iphone or nokia with symbian os sorry microsoft there are now alternatives and i will insure i use them every single chance i get because I too now hate you hotmail/zune /vista all second rate in comparison to the competition but instead of improving your product (even after 2 1/2 years for as simple a matter as hotmail)you insult your users who you have wronged
your arrogance is your downfall
fuck hotmail, i got all my stuff deleted, very valuable stuff, i was out of country for more than a month. This shit is really fucked up! fucking hotmail.
well, you’re choice right. i really like to live hotmail forever. hotmail is designed color better than gmail and yahoo.
no, won’t steal your hotmail accounts.
no hotmail hacks. have your options find to inform can block hacks.
no, won’t blame!
HOTMAIL BETTER:D
The new hotmail its CRAP i want back the old one with the new one u have to attach pic by pic with the old one i can pust many pics with out doining the crap now
Valuable data (email…whatever) must be backed-up periodically to insure you will have use of it. This is an absolute truth. Ignore it at your own peril. If cannot pop it you must write rules in your Outlook or Entourage or something to move it to your local computer to store it. MS or no one lse can store unlimited data for the WHOLE PLANET. Protect YOUR DATA!!!!!
PEACE!!
omg i HATE hotmail i reli need the info in my old emails that they deleted after me not going on my account for 30 days!!! grrrr wtf?!
Please help
Dera Sir/Madam
I have come back after six months to find that all my received and sent emails have been deletd (by misstake) for the past six months please help me recover as i am at a total loss about what to do.
Please please help
Daanish Zaidi
I just found this website and I too, was affected by this awful 30 day rule in 2003, which as I state below had not been 30 days since my last log-in. I empathize with all those who have written, because like them I too lost years of emails, which were during an important part of my life.
This has affected many of our lives, both personally, financially, emotionally, etc.
Microsoft should have restored all of our e-mails. I’m sure there are many more of us out there and maybe we could all stick together via a class-action and make Microsoft liable for their deliberate actions.
Below is the original email response I received from Microsoft after my original email to them 6 days prior.
RE: {RTCProd#003-535-979}My hotmail account & the 30 day period?
From: PSS Support ([email protected])
Sent: Sun 10/26/03 10:48 AM
To: Jeanie …
Hello Jeanie,
Thank you for contacting Microsoft Customer Service.
My name is Ernesto and I understand that you an issue regarding your Hotmail account. I realize the importance of your issue and look forward to providing you with assistance as soon as possible.
Services such as Hotmail are supported by a specially trained group of Support Professionals that can better address these types of issues. Please follow the directions below to obtain assistance from a Support Professional for your Hotmail issue.
1. Go to http://lc1.law13.hotmail.passport.com/cgi-bin/support
2. To submit your support request, select the appropriate support option from the list and follow the instructions.
Alternatively, you may contact them by sending an email at [email protected]
Jeanie, I hope the information I have provided should assist you further. If you have any questions concerning Microsoft products and services, please let us know by replying to this e-mail. Have a great day.
Regards,
Ernesto
Microsoft Customer Service Representative
“Microsoft Security Announcement: Have you installed the patch for Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-039? If not Microsoft strongly advises you to review the information at the following link regarding Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-039
http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-039.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-039.asp or visit Windows Update site at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to install the patch. Running the SCAN program from the Windows Update site will help to insure you are current with all security patches, not just MS03-039.”
—–Original Message—–
From: Jeanie …
Date: Sunday, October 26, 2003 09:57 AM
To: [email protected] ([email protected])
Subject: My hotmail account & the 30 day period
To whom it may concern:
After receiving several blank replies from Hotmail and MSN, with no success,
I am now sending this e-mail to you, Microsoft.
I would like my entire account re-activated. First, it had not been 30 days
since I had signed in to my account when it was deleted. I know the exact
date I signed into this account.
Second, I searched the entire country for a childhood school friend, and
found the person through several phone calls and e-mails. Those e-mail
correspondences are among some of the important business and personal
e-mails you deleted. Those e-mails are precious to me and irreplaceable!
Please re-activate my account immediately.
Thank you,
Jeanie
My e-mail account and the 30 day period?
From: (Unknown)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as unsafe
Sent: Mon 10/20/03 4:04 PM
To: [email protected]
To whom it may concern: I would like my entire account re-activated. First, it has not been 30 days since I have signed in to my account. I know the exact date I signed into this account. Second, I searched the entire country for a childhood school friend, and found the person through several phone calls and e-mails. Those e-mail correspondences are among the ones you deleted. Those e-mails are precious to me and irreplaceable! Please re-activate my account. Thank you,Jeanie
As you can see, after 5 years, I have still not gotten over this and am very disappointed with Hotmail’s services.
Below is an email I received 10 days after my initial contact email to Hotmail.
RE: CST135796692ID -?
From: MSN Hotmail Support ([email protected])
Sent: Thu 10/30/03 9:11 PM
To: ……[email protected]
Hello Jeanie, Thank you for writing to MSN Hotmail. This is Iris and I am writing in response to your concern in the lost messages in your account. I apologize for the delay in responding to your message. Every message that Hotmail receives is very important. Unfortunately, we recently received an extremely high volume of e-mail messages and are working diligently to catch up. I have checked your account and it appears that it was indeed marked “Inactive”. I regret to inform you that we cannot recover any messages that were deleted from your account. However, if you wish that we investigate the cause of inactivity of your account, please provide us with answers to the following questions: 1) Are you going to http://www.hotmail.com when you sign in, a different site, or are you using a favorite or bookmark to access the account? 2) If using a favorite or bookmark, what is the URL you have book marked? or what page did you bookmark? (Home, Inbox, etc) I appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.
Sincerely, Iris L.
MSN Hotmail Customer Support
— Original Message
— From: ……[email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tue Oct 28 11:31:58 PST 2003
Subject: To whom it may concern: After receiving several blank replies from Hotmail, I have e-mailed and received information from Microsoft as to where I can obtain service from Hotmail. I would like my entire account re-activated. First, it had not been 30 days since I had signed in to my account when it was deleted. I know the exact date I signed into this account. Second, I searched the entire country for a childhood school friend, and found the person through several phone calls and e-mails. Those e-mail correspondences are among some of the important business and personal e-mails you deleted. Those e-mails are precious to me and irreplaceable! Please re-activate my account immediately.
Thank you,
Sincerely, Jeanie
Hey guys,
That IS some COLD doo-doo! I lost everything in my ‘hotmail contact folders, my inbox, saved and categorized folders.
I can’t believe this. Yeah, how can we retrieve our classic/regular email messages accounts? How? Hope someone knows.
I tried – looking for a tab link to click on, converting back to classic hotmail, and didn’t see where to login at ‘hotmail, Not Windows live.
I don’t particularly care for Windows-live, which means we have to start a whole new email account with Wins-live. Bull!!
Anyway…
Sorry about what happened to all of us unnecessarily!
Best to all of us!
what the f@*&k i try to get into my hotmail and windows live hotmail wont let me pass..this is just plan shit..get your shit together …im going to stop using my hotmail adress after haveing this email account scince u started ..what a pain in the ass that all my conections and my time has to be deverted to this …totaly pissed offf
Typical bullshit with fucking hotmail! Years of emails from previous relationship all gone! I didn’t expect much of hotmail but did these pricks even think first before changing shit around for the worst? Get your heads out of your asses, you fucking idiots!!!
Well I login every daily and all my old emails and folders were deleted, these folders held legal documents, invoices information about property ect, I want to know if I can sue to get this information back.
I agree that Hotmail sucks! The only reason I created an account was to get a Portal for my Microsoft Reader so I could buy and read secure books. Microsoft stole my books! Even though I own the books and still have them on my hard drive, Microsoft’s new DRM software for the MS Reader product required me to re-authorize and when I tried to do that I found my Hotmail account missing. My books are now unreadable. I can’t get Microsoft to help me. They no longer offer email or phone support for Hotmail and unless your problem is neatly found in their FAQ database, you are out of luck!
If you are a publisher, don’t support Microsoft Reader, because Microsoft will steal the books you sell to your customers and they will hate you for it.
I am mad and want to either join or start a class action lawsuit. Anyone interested.
My hotmail account was deleted also. But the thing is, I was checking my emails just this morning. Three years worth of emails gone. Hotmail is proving to be such a disappointment.
i log into my account every single day. today all of my email messages were deleted. the home page says i need to sign up for an inbox account. what is this? why in the hell were all of my saved emails over the past 7 years deleted without any warning. i am so upset right now!! what can i do?! help!
MSN has lost all my information alot of it has to do with my business, invoices receipts, emails pertaining to a company I am in dispute with if I do not retrieve this information I stand to lose a lot of money, I sign into hotmail every day, I want to sue MSN for losing my emails.
I’ve used hotmail for last 10 years, all of my stuff gone, memories, messages from friends i’ve lost contact with, and while it does make me feel better that i’m not alone I still have to say :FUCK YOU MICROSOFT. You’ve destroyed memories, left me without many emails that I needed for my career, and killed the last shard of respect I had left for any aspect of your company.
Blaming policies isn’t good enough, and I guarantee whatever was in our accounts is backed up somewhere, after all we all know information never really dies. Blame yourselves you are the idiotic minions that have dragged your company into a pit it will likely never recover from.
thank you and good night!
This is just irresponsible. Like a bank throw away all of your money and stuff from your safe deposit box.
How can a company does this? This is irresponsible.
Well I’m still pissed off after having lost 8 years of email addresses and attachments but i learned a lesson …microsoft is shit i was pissed and got rid of all their crap and you know what? it is an outdated OS their market share for browsers has fallen like a rock explorer is a joke the % of users for windows OS is down to 90% i don’t check for viruses anymore hell I look for them to spread them around to hasten the down fall of microsoft you know why? real OS’s don’t get viruses mac’s don’t linux doesn’t who does ? Microshit that’s who don’t be a sheep crawl out of the ghetto and get a mac AVOID all micoshit products your life will be sooo much better and it will hit them where it hurts …they deserve it the sooner they go bankrupt the better
they have suspended my account but never deleeted anything..all i had to do was re log in and it was there..what id relly like to pitch a bitch about is the 99.9% of websites(like this one) out there who now insist on using all this rather complicated script includeing all these stupid shockwaveflash jizmos that are very unfriendly to those of us still useing w98 and a dial up connection.
these blogs (aka websites)some of you morons build would literaly take hours to open on dial up if not for billys ie shutting the party down after 90 seconds..what a sad joke the internet has become.
it sucks bib time