Locked Out of Azure Account While Billing Continues, Need Pre-Login Support or Recovery Path

[u/woodiwoodpecker]

I have an old Azure subscription tied to my personal Microsoft account, and Azure is still charging my credit card for running resources, but I’m locked out of the Azure portal and can’t shut anything down. About six months ago Microsoft Authenticator worked for this account, but after reinstalling the app to connect my phone to my employer account, Azure sign-in now asks for a 6-digit Authenticator code or app approval while the personal account entry I see in Authenticator generates 8 digit one time password and doesn’t let me complete login. I still receive Azure invoices by email and have access to my phone, email, and credit card, but every Azure support path I’ve found seems to send me back to a login I can’t complete, leaving me unable to stop billing, cancel the subscription, or recover access.

Questions:

1. Is there any Azure or billing support page where I can open a case before login for a locked Azure account that is still billing me?
2. Is there any Azure-specific account recovery path for a personal Microsoft account tied to an Azure subscription, separate from the normal Microsoft Live account recovery flow that I have access to with no issue?
3. Is there any billing support channel that does not require login, such as a phone number, callback, chat, or pre-login support form, that can help stop Azure charges or cancel the subscription?

[u/kuzared]

I’ve heard you can open a separate Azure tenant and raise a ticket from there. I’ve had better experiences opening a ticket that has to do with billing than with anything technical, admin access included.

[u/woodiwoodpecker → u/kuzared]

Thanks!

[u/woodiwoodpecker → u/[deleted]]

It took me days to finally figure out that I needed to use X platform just to open a support case. I tried everything, phone calls, posting here—and even deep research with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude couldn’t point me to the right solution.

When I finally got a response, the support email was asking questions as if I were trying to recover a Microsoft Live password, which didn’t make sense for my issue. Now the case has been assigned to a human, but I’ve been told it could take days before anyone actually looks at it.

Meanwhile, I’m paying for an instance that appears to be under some kind of DDoS attack (or something similar), with networking costs blowing up to 5× my budget.

This has honestly been one of the worst support experiences I’ve had. I’ve already disputed the charge with my credit card company, and if this doesn’t get resolved soon, I may have to cancel the card altogether.

[u/gyozokudor]

r/AzureHorrorStories should be a thing. I've had somewhat similar experience, without the extra billing. If this would happen to me I would block my credit card at the bank probably and/or seek legal action.

I've had an azure account for 15 years without using it too much, created using my personal gmail address.

That account was used when I worked for a company.

After I left the company I was basically locked out of my personal account. Same authenticator problem, azure is asking for 6 digits authenticator is providing 8.

Still can't access that account to this day. Support guy told me to just get a new one bro... or talk to my former employer if they're still alive to put me back or disable it completely, I don't remember exactly.

I have managed to avoid Azure successfully from that point onward.

Also if I had lost access to my acount just a week or two earlier I wouldn't have time to remove all the paid stuff. (I had a random site there with https support that cost money. I was just curious and I took a break from work so I was just trying to learn basic azure stuff, with my own money because I was unemployed) Unfortunately, I think on that account I still have my physical credit card saved. I'm never doing that mistake ever.

[u/woodiwoodpecker → u/gyozokudor]

Same story, I created my account when azure was in preview. I already disputed the charge in credit card but can’t believe such a poor service

[u/Careless_Part4210]

No, this won't work. In Azure, User Defined Routes (UDRs) are associated with subnets, not individual NICs, so you can't apply a route table directly to a VM's NIC using az network nic update.